


2016

by ClawR



Series: This Strange Eventful History [1]
Category: Lovely Little Losers, Nothing Much to Do
Genre: Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, Multi, not quite fluff but not quite angst, the adventure continues!, thousands of words of people gradually figuring out how to be in a relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-05-30
Packaged: 2018-05-18 18:16:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 24,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5938285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClawR/pseuds/ClawR
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter, Balthazar, and the next twelve months.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. January - June

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is my (quite belated) Christmas gift to the brilliant and wonderful marydebenham. The idea (specifically, the cast) was conceived before the last few videos of Lovely Little Losers, so there's one slight contrivance, but hopefully we can all work past that.
> 
> The second half of the fic is in the works, and should be up soon-ish.

**January**

Freddie Skypes him on January 1. Ten a.m. on January 1.

“Jesus, Freddie,” Peter says, dragging his hand through his hair. “Haven’t you ever heard of texting?”

“I couldn’t wait one second more to see that ruggedly handsome face.”

Peter hangs up.

He’s not even out of the chair before Freddie calls again. This time, Peter stays connected long enough to get a good look at her. She seems just as wrung out from New Year’s Eve as he is—bags under her eyes, hair even messier than normal. Peter can’t actually _see_ hangovers, but a year tending bar has gotten him pretty close, and he wouldn’t be surprised if Freddie has one to match his own.

“I know you love me, really,” she says.

“I’d love you more if you’d call me in the afternoon.”

“Would I really be _me_ , though, if I did?”

“Freddie. What do you want?”

Freddie rocks backward, and Peter can see that she’s sitting cross-legged in her chair, arms wrapped around her knees. What did a person have to do to get that flexible?

Stretch, probably.

“We need to talk about room assignments,” Freddie says.

“What about them?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking. Kit’s probably going to be, um, in my room a lot, so I thought he should take your room, since it’s smallest, and you could move to Ben’s.”

“Fine by me.” The thought of returning to the black hole he’d called a bedroom last year was pretty depressing, actually. Ben’s room would be weird at first, but he’d get used to it. New year, new room, new start.

Freddie rocks forward again and starts fiddling with the laces on her sneakers. Which, has she been _running_? Who _runs_ the morning of New Year’s?

“Except…” she says.

“Freddie,” Peter says, with a hint of warning in his voice. Nothing good ever comes after “except,” with Freddie.

“Well, if you and Stan wanted to room together, we’d have space for a fifth flatmate. It’d give us more breathing room in the budget.”

“Why don’t you and Kit room together, then?”

Freddie wraps her shoelaces around her fingers until her skin turns red. “He says he needs a place where he can be messy.”

Peter snorts. Freddie ignores it, a sure sign she’s on a mission.

“But you and Stan are both really neat,” she says. “Or, you know, you’re in the same general realm of neatness.”

“You know Balth and I have been dating for less than a month.”

Freddie gives him a look. It says, _I can’t tell if you’re an idiot because you think what you’ve just said is true, or if you’re an idiot because you think I’ll believe it_. A lot of words for one look, but Peter’s seen it on Bea’s face enough times to know.

“Just think about it, okay?” she says. A smirk crawls its way across her face. “We’d have room in the budget for Balthazar to buy all the hummus he wants.”

Peter hangs up again.

 

#

 

Balthazar isn’t _surprised_ , exactly, when Pete shows up at his house at noon on New Year’s Day, because they’ve seen each other every day, this break. But if Balth was going to pick a day they’d miss, it would have been today; Pete had let a little loose, at last night’s New Year’s party.

But here he is, in Balth’s room, wearing his sunglasses indoors but otherwise apparently undamaged. Peter sits at the keyboard and fiddles with the keys a bit. The tune is just barely recognizable as a crude version of “An Ode.”

Balth slides in next to him and picks up the melody, adding a few flourishes here and there, until he’s finished out the chorus. “I could always rewrite the lyrics to go with ‘Peter,’ you know.”

Pete wraps an arm around his shoulders. “Nah. Pedro’s okay.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Didn’t you see how I signed those last few videos?”

“I don’t always read the descriptions.”

It’s either a mark of how long they’ve known each other, or of the depth of Peter’s feeling, that Balth can see his exasperation even through the sunglasses.

“I’m not making a big deal about it, or anything,” Peter says. “It’s just, you know, it kind of _is_ my name.”

Something in Balthazar’s chest inflates, a little. He’d never liked the whole Peter/Pedro thing. He’d gone along with it, since it mattered so much to Peter, but it had always kind of depressed him.

“Freddie’s never gonna call you Pedro,” he says.

“I’m not, like, enforcing it. Peter’s my name, too. Just, you know, whatever people want to call me.”

Peter clumsily trills the middle C and D keys. Balthazar loves him a lot, so he doesn’t pull his hand away from the keyboard.

“You should probably tell people, though.”

“Yeah. I think I’ll probably wait ‘til everyone’s there. Do it all at once, so it’s not a big thing, you know?”

None of the Dukes—or Benedick, for that matter—had been at the Donaldsons’ New Year’s party. Leo had been recovering from a round of chemo, so they’d had a quiet, family party at Hero’s houses. But Ben and Bea were, apparently, still planning on traveling, so there was sure to be a well-attended goodbye party.

“Yeah,” Balthazar agrees.

Peter switches from his two-note trill to something resembling a pentatonic scale, but with two very loud, very flat notes jammed into it. Balth grabs the hand Peter’s using to play and laces his fingers through Pete’s. Peter smiles at him, and Balth feels his own face shaping itself to match.

“There is something I wanted to talk to _you_ about,” Peter says.

“Oh?”

“I was talking to Freddie this morning…”

“Oh, is this about the rooming thing? Yeah, she texted me about that earlier.”

Peter gapes at him. “How come she texted you, but she wakes me up with Skype?”

Balth shrugs. “I guess she trusts me to actually look at my phone.”

For a moment, Peter looks affronted, but his face smooths out as he, presumably, remembers all the times last year that he ignored call after call after call. “Right. Well, it’s a weird idea, isn’t it?”

What’s _that_ supposed to mean? “Is it?”

Peter stiffens, and his fingers tighten around Balthazar’s. “I mean, not that I don’t _like_ the idea, but we’ve never actually, like, slept in the same bed together.”

“Yeah, but we’ve never really done things in the right order, have we?”

“But what if it turns out that you snore really loudly, or something?”

“Pete, you’ve slept over at my house. You’d know if I snored.”

Peter starts fiddling with the keyboard again with his free hand, hunting and pecking keys at random. “It just seems like, what if… I don’t know, what if…”

Balthazar’s not quite as sure of his ability to read Peter as he once was, but he’s pretty sure he knows what comes after those _what if_ s. It’s not, _What if you snore?_ It’s, _What if in six months we hate each other?_ He doesn’t blame Pete for not saying it out loud. Balthazar sure isn’t going to.

And it’s not like it’s a bad point. They’ve only been dating for three weeks. Three-week-old relationships end all the time, and then they’d be stuck in the same room, and there’d be nowhere else to go.

But their relationship isn’t three weeks old, not really, and Balthazar is tired of pretending that he’s anything other than all in.

“What if we gave it like a test run?” he says. “You can stay at mine for a week. And if we drive each other crazy, well, no problem, we tell Freddie we want separate rooms. And if we don’t, then hey. New flatmate. Hummus money.”

Balthazar knows the answer before Peter speaks; he can see the smile creep back onto his face.

It’s going to be a _really_ good week.

 

**February**

Peter slams the car door behind him and stretches his whole body, from the base of his spine all the way up through his shoulders to his biceps, his elbows, his wrists. His back makes a few unsatisfyingly small pops, not nearly enough to shake off the three straight hours he’s just driven.

The passenger side door slams much more quietly, and Balthazar joins Peter by the boot.

“Think they’ll get here soon?”

“I could see them in the mirror on the motorway,” Peter says. “I think they just got caught at a red light.”

“This is it, then.”

“This is what?”

“The last peace and quiet we’re going to get forever, probably.” Balth grins at him. “Should we make the most of it?”

Peter smiles and leans down to kiss him properly. This, naturally, is when Hero, Bea, and Ben pull up. Ben is driving. Peter knows Ben is driving, even with his back turned, because the horn starts beeping in time to “What Is Love.”

“Yeah, we get it,” Peter shouts, waving his arm at them. “You’re very proud. Park your car, already!”

Ben pulls in just down the road, and he, Hero, and Bea pile out. Peter helps them pull Hero’s luggage from the boot.

“Trip okay?” he asks, directing the question at Hero. She looks pale—paler than normal—and like she might be carsick. Probably, though, she’s just thinking of Leo.

Hero is their fifth flatmate. It had been Leo’s idea. He’d known Hero was thinking about going to Wellington for uni before the diagnosis—most of her friends live there, now, and there’s a thriving arts community on campus.

She’d resisted, of course, saying she’d go to uni locally, maybe just part-time. Peter hadn’t been there for the conversation, but Bea said it had led to the only real fight she’d ever seen Hero have. There’d been screaming, apparently, which was a terrifying thought, and there’d been tears, and in the end, Hero had agreed to go to Wellington—provided Leo called her every day, and provided she was notified immediately of any unexpected news or downward turn.

Peter thinks he understands why Leo took the stand he did. He doesn’t want his illness to overshadow Hero’s life, and he knows that’s what would happen in Auckland. Here, there’s at least a chance that Hero will occasionally think about something other than Leo’s cancer. Still, looking at Hero’s pale face, and knowing that her thoughts are 700 km away, Peter wonders if the whole thing isn’t a terrible idea.

“The trip was fine, thank you,” Hero says, and takes her bag from Peter’s hands. “Go help your boyfriend.”

Balthazar does not need help. He and Peter left most of their stuff behind when they went home for the summer, so they have one light duffel bag each, compared to Hero’s two suitcases, three boxes of books, satchel of decorative knickknacks, and sewing machine. But Hero’s wish is Peter’s command, so he goes back to his own car and picks up both his and Balthazar’s bags, ignoring the humongous eye-roll Balth sends his way.

Peter trudges up the stairs and into the living room, where there’s a party waiting for them. He nods hello at Kit and Rosa, lets Freddie and Meg hug him, carefully sidesteps Vegan Fred, and deposits his and Balth’s bags in Balthazar’s—no, _his and Balthazar’s_ —room. Then he stands there for a moment, just letting it sink in. New year, new room, new start. A fresh beginning. A blank-ish slate.

It takes three minutes for Peter to make his first mistake.

Hero and Bea are in the living room, having abandoned Hero’s suitcases on the floor so they can say their hellos to the people who’ve gathered to greet them. Ben’s standing in the partially-open front door, trying to nudge it the rest of the way open using the cardboard box of books he’s carrying. Peter rushes forward and pulls the door out of his way.

“Thanks, Pedro,” Ben says, awkwardly pushing past him. “Er, Peter.”

And Peter realizes, hey. Everyone’s here, and Ben’s just given him a perfect opening.

“Pedro’s fine,” he says.

Ben drops the box. It lands with a floor-shaking _thump_.

“Hey!” Hero protests.

“ _Really_?” Ben says. “I can call you Pedro again?”

Peter shrugs. “I mean, you never really stopped.”

“But it’s _allowed_ now? I won’t get your scary vampire glare?”

Peter considers unleashing a glare in Ben’s direction, just for the hell of it, but he just rolls his eyes. “Yeah. Call me whatever.” He waves his hand vaguely at the rest of the room. “Everyone.”

Nobody seems to care much about this announcement—Balthazar nods knowingly, Meg smiles a little wickedly, Bea and Hero kind of _look_ at each other, and everyone else kind of shrugs. It would have been the perfect reaction, except for Ben, whose shock is slowly morphing into a demented, delighted smile.

“Sure thing, _Pedro_ ,” Ben says. “Could you give me a hand with this box, _Pedro_?”

Peter raises an eyebrow. “I _could_ , Benedick, but I’m not really feeling like it right now.”

Unperturbed, Ben cheerfully hauls the box into Hero’s room. He bounds back into the living room immediately.

“Anyone up for tea? _Pedro_? Anyone?”

Bea coughs. “Ben.”

“What? I just want to know if _Pedro_ wants some tea.”

“ _Ben_.”

“Well? _Pedro_? What do you say?”

Ben turns toward Peter with the pleased look of a puppy that’s brought in the newspaper. The mangled, chewed-up newspaper. Peter looks him down coolly.

“New rule,” he says. “Everyone can call me Pedro except Ben.”

Ben’s face collapses satisfyingly, and the flat ripples with laughter. Bea’s is particularly loud.

Peter claps Ben on the shoulder. “Just don’t be a dick about it, yeah?”

He heads out to help with the rest of Hero’s stuff.

 

#

 

“Are you sure you don’t want more stuff on the walls, or whatever?” Balthazar says. “I mean, it’s mostly my instruments, right now.”

It’s 11 p.m. Balth and Peter have spent the evening with the others, moving Hero in, watching movies, catching up. But now Meg and Vegan Fred and Rosa have all gone home, and everyone’s retired to their respective rooms, with Bea and Ben camping out in Kit’s room. Balth and Peter have two piles of clothes and two piles of books, and they’ve been working for the past half hour to fit them onto a single clothes rack and bookshelf.

“I like your instruments,” Pete says. He seems sincere. He’s got that grin on his face, the one Balth is slowly realizing is only for him.

“Yeah, but it’s like, not really _you_ , you know?”

Pete shrugs and tries to jam the fifth volume of _Angelic Layer_ onto the top shelf, next to Balth’s copy of _The Aeneid_. “I don’t think we’re gonna fit any more on here.”

“I’ll move some of mine out to the living room.”

“No, don’t do that, I’ll move mine.”

Balth takes _The Aeneid_ off the shelf.

“I mean it, Balthy, I’ll move mine.”

“You shouldn’t have to.”

“Well, _someone_ has to,” Pete says.

“I don’t really feel like hauling books to the other room right now,” Balthazar says, which is entirely true. He woke up at 7 this morning, and road tripping is exhausting. “Let’s leave it for tomorrow, yeah?”

He jerks his head at the bed. Peter takes _The Aeneid_ from him, sets it haphazardly back on the shelf, and then uses his newly freed hands to pull him in for a kiss.

“Yeah, okay,” Pete says, when he’s pulled away. He heads toward the bed. “You sleep on the right here, too?”

“Yeah,” Balthazar says. “Huh. We’re gonna need another bedside table.”

“I don’t really use them.”

Pete flops onto the bed, bouncing a couple times. Balthazar laughs and flops down next to him. He’s never really been able to put into words what it is he loves about Peter, but he thinks that he could do worse than to just take a picture of him right now, his hair askew and a goofy grin on his face, treating the bed like a ball pit.

They scramble underneath the covers, and Balth turns off the lamp on his bedside table, and then it’s just him and Peter lying next to each other in the dark. Peter’s deep, loud breathing, and Balth’s racing thoughts, and the way his left side is warmer than his right.

Here’s what Balthazar learned in their week-long trial in Auckland: He loves this part.

He loves how close Peter is, how everything either of them does just makes Balth more aware of his presence: pulling at the covers, turning over, shifting to find the cool part of the pillow. And he _really_ loves it when he turns onto his right side and Peter turns with him, draping an arm over his shoulder and around his chest. Thirteen-year-old Balthazar is still somewhere inside him, losing his freaking mind.

But what Balthazar loves most is how the dark makes the hard things easier to say.

“Pedro,” he says.

“Mm?” Peter kisses the back of his neck.

“You think Hero’s okay?”

A pause. Peter’s lips have left Balthazar’s neck, but they’re still close; he can feel Peter’s breath just over the collar of his T-shirt. It leaves a little patch of goosebumps behind.

“I think Hero can get through anything.”

“Yeah,” Balth says. And now, the hard question. “Are you okay?”

“What do you mean?”

“With Hero being here.”

Balth closes his eyes while he waits for the answer, like he’s making a wish. They never did talk about this, when they agreed to make Hero their fifth flatmate. How ridiculous was that? They’d talked to Leo, and they’d talked to Hero, and they’d talked to Freddie and Kit, and Peter had vouched for what a great flatmate Hero would be, and Balthazar had privately assured Freddie that everyone would be cool, and in all of that, this question had simply never been asked. Bea had asked Hero if she was okay with it—Balth had heard her, when he was leaving the Dukes’ house after the first logistical meeting. But no one had asked Peter. That had been Balthazar’s job.

“It’s not really my place to be okay with that or not,” Peter says.

Balth opens his eyes. It’s maybe not the answer he was wishing for, but at least it’s an answer.

“If you’re not okay with it…”

“I’m okay with it!” Peter grabs Balthazar’s left hand with his own and interlaces their fingers, like they’re a folded-over chain of paper dolls. “I promise, I’m fine with Hero being here.”

“Okay,” says Balthazar. “Good.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Is there anything you’re not okay with?”

Balthazar closes his eyes, ready to drift to sleep. “No. Everything’s okay.”

 

**March**

On the first Tuesday in March, the flat receives a postcard from Ben. The front is a painting of a busy, industrial harbor, with quaint yellow houses on one side, rigid factories on the other, and in the middle, calm water, with smoke from ships’ funnels blending into a hazy orange-and-blue sky. The back is blank. The only thing written on it is their address, and they only know it’s from Ben because Hero recognizes his handwriting.

No one can figure out what Ben was thinking until Kit notices the small, serif typeface in the bottom left corner, labeling the scene: _San Pedro Harbor_.

Peter says, “He’s gonna be a dick about it, isn’t he.”

 

#

 

Peter has known Hero for so long that he’s forgotten that she doesn’t actually make friends easily. Everyone who gets to know her ends up liking her, but it can take ages to get to know her. And she’s more reserved than ever, at the moment, for obvious reasons.

Not that Hero _needs_ new friends. She and Balthazar are close, and Meg’s here, and Kit and Freddie both think she’s great. Peter comes home to find Freddie and Hero passionately discussing Awesome Women of History nearly as often as he comes home to find Kit and Hero curled up on separate couches, poking at their separate computers, and occasionally sharing funny videos or memes that they’ve found.

Still, Peter’s pretty sure he’s not the only one who’s relieved when Hero finally brings a new friend home. Freddie fairly jumps on the idea, asking what Mimi’s favorite snack is, so they can have it on hand, and is there any movie that she particularly likes? Peter has the sense that Freddie’s been itching to run some part of Hero’s life for ages, but Hero is so put-together that she’s been finding it hard.

Mimi Carson, who’s in Hero’s classics lecture, is funny and sharp and very dry. She has thin, dark hair, thick, dark glasses, and an encyclopedic memory of literary quotes. Her only flaw, so far as Peter can see, is an uncharacteristic and irrepressible romantic streak.

“Hero’s told me all about all of you,” she says, when Hero introduces her.

“ _All_ about us?” Peter asks.

“Oh, yeah,” Mimi says. Behind her, Hero catches Peter’s eye and shakes her head. “All of your various epic loves.”

This time, Peter catches Hero’s eye. She shrugs.

Meg, for her part, seems delighted. “They _are_ adorable, aren’t they? Did she show you Pedro and Balth’s first kiss?”

“ _No_ ,” says Mimi. “It’s on film?”

Which is how “movie night” turns into the seven of them huddled around Hero’s computer, watching “+confrontation+.” Meg cuts it off two minutes before the end, because, she says, no one wants to watch that.

“You guys are so sweet,” Mimi says. “There’s more of these?”

“Nothing worth watching,” Peter says, glancing at Balth, who’s gone very still beside him. Freddie nods in vigorous agreement.

“Hm.” Mimi shoots him an appraising glance, and Peter gets the strong impression that she’ll be watching every other video on the channel the moment she gets home. “How long had you guys been dating, then?” she asks Freddie and Kit.

Kit starts to count back on his fingers, but Freddie says, “Two months,” without missing a beat.

“Wait, what are you counting from?” Kit asks.

“The sushi date.”

“That’s not our first date.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“Our first date was coffee.”

“It’s not a date if it’s _at the place you work_ . Sushi was we went _out_ , just the two of us, and I paid for both of us. That’s a date.”

Kit laughs and shakes his head, and Mimi turns her attention to Peter and Balth. “What about you guys?”

“What about us?” says Balthazar.

“What was your first date?”

Peter and Balth look at each other, and Peter sees that Balth is having the same realization he is. “We… haven’t had one,” Peter says.

“Oh,” Mimi says.

“So, are we gonna watch the movie?” Balthazar asks. “I mean, if we’re doing Extended Edition, that’s like four hours, isn’t it?”

“I still say we should do theatrical cut,” Freddie says. “The rest of the stuff is just extra. It’s not _really_ part of the movie.”

“It’s true to the director’s vision, though,” Mimi says.

Peter can sense a long debate approaching, and he wraps an arm around Balthazar and settles back to watch.

Hours and hours later—Freddie had lost the battle after Peter stepped in on Mimi’s side—Peter and Balth retreat to their room.

“I’m gonna just go to bed,” Peter says, fishing a T-shirt out of the bureau.

“Yeah, you work tomorrow, don’t you?”

“Until 2 a.m., yeah.”

“Do you mind if I stay up and read for a little?” Balth waves his world history textbook in the air. “I’ve got like three chapters of this I’ve still got to cover.”

Peter frowns. “That’s not reading, that’s working.”

“It’s both, actually.”

“We’re not doing this again, are we?”

“What’s _this_ , exactly?”

“You working all the time.”

“I just spent four hours watching a movie.”

“I’m just saying, you can take one day off.”

“If the light’s gonna bother you, I can go to the living room.”

“No, don’t do that. I don’t mind the light.”

They get in bed, with just Balthazar’s little lamp lighting up the room. Peter wasn’t lying—he really doesn’t mind the light, he’s never had a problem sleeping with it on—but he tosses and turns anyway. He sleeps on his side, normally, so he tries like that for a while, but his eyes refuse to close. He rolls onto his back, but all that means is that instead of staring at the paint on the wall, he’s staring at the paint on the ceiling. After maybe twenty minutes, he rolls over to face Balthazar.

Balth is propped up on a pillow, staring blearily at his textbook. One thumb runs over the pages again and again, making a soft _shhh_ noise as it goes. For a moment, Peter loves him. Of course, he loves Balth all the time, but in that moment, it’s _all_ he’s doing—loving Balthazar.

Then Balth rubs the bridge of his nose, like he’s got a migraine, and a million other feelings roll back in. Worry, first among them.

“ _Should_ we, though?” Peter says.

Balthazar blinks, like he hadn’t noticed Peter staring. “Should we what?”

“Go on a date. A proper date.”

Balthazar says, “Yeah, I guess.”

His smile says, _I can’t wait_.

 

#

 

It’s Peter who picks the restaurant, because, as it turns out, Balthazar doesn’t really _know_ any restaurants. Not any first date-worthy ones, anyway. So he tells Peter, _not too expensive_ , and _nowhere you’ve ever had more than two drinks in one night_ , and the rest is up to him.

The place Peter chooses is Italian, well-lit, part of a franchise, but not a _large_ franchise. Three or four locations, tops. There’s soulful, brass-heavy Muzak playing on the sound system, and Balthazar can’t suppress a flinch when they walk in the door, but he doesn’t think Peter notices.

The hostess shows them to a small table. They get water. They stare at their menus. Peter orders chicken parmesan. Balthazar orders pasta carbonara.

They wait.

“Sorry about the music,” Peter says, after a minute.

Balthazar looks up from where he’d been fussing with his napkin. “I wasn’t going to say anything…”

Pete laughs and rubs the back of his neck. “Yeah, I’ve never actually been here before. I thought it would be more… I dunno.”

“You’ve never been here before?”

“Well, your requirements didn’t leave a lot of places I _have_ been on the table…”

Balthazar can’t quite tell if Peter’s annoyed or uncomfortable. Definitely one of the two. “I just meant…”

“I know what you meant.” Peter buries his head in his hands, running his fingers through his hair. “Super romantic first date conversation, huh?”

Uncomfortable, Balthazar decides. Uncomfortable and a little embarrassed. “You know, for our first date, Damien took me all the way to Hamilton, like, an hour and a half away, to see a car show.”

Peter looks up. One hand is still tangled in the tips of his hair. “For real?”

“Yeah.”

“And you went on a _second_?”

Balthazar shrugs. “He seemed nice, and you weren’t asking.”

For all the times he can’t read Peter, sometimes, Balthazar thinks his face is like a time-lapse photograph. He can see emotions break across it in slow-motion: confusion, then something like sadness, and then a deep, pervasive pleasure. The idea that Balthazar can cause that kind of pleasure for Peter, and so easily, calls up an answering happiness in himself.

“I _was_ an idiot, wasn’t I?” Peter says.

“A bit, yeah.”

“Hey!” Pete’s voice squeaks with outrage.

“Well, I mean, I’m not gonna _lie_.”

Peter kicks him, lightly, under the table. Balthazar kicks back, but misses Pete’s leg and hits the rung of the chair instead.

They’re still laughing when the food arrives.

 

**April**

Halfway through April, a tiny, weightless bubble envelope arrives at the flat. The only markings on it are the address, in Ben’s handwriting, and the postmark, which is from Rio de Janeiro. Everyone gathers on the couch to watch Peter open it.

He rips open the envelope and shakes a cheap plastic keychain out into his hand. One side has a picture of the Christ the Redeemer statue.  The other side has the name “PEDRO” in blocky blue letters. It was clearly purchased off a rack in the Rio de Janeiro airport.

Freddie snorts in laughter, then quickly composes herself.

“Do you want me to tell Bea to tell him to stop?” Hero asks.

“Nah, I’ll tell him myself,” Peter says.

He never does, though.

 

#

 

Meg leaps off the bus seconds before it takes off. She shakes out her hair and flings her arms out in front of her. “Let Singles Night _begin_!”

“I _really_ don’t think our boyfriends would appreciate you calling this ‘Singles Night,’” Peter says, gesturing between himself and Freddie. Freddie gives a little nod with raised eyebrows, what Peter privately (and occasionally publicly) calls her _Freddie Kingston approves this message_ look.

“Well, if they weren’t such losers, they would be here, and I wouldn’t be _able_ to call it ‘Singles Night.’”

Peter raises his hands in a little _don’t look at me_ shrug. “I’m just saying, you spent like a year on an elaborate plan to get us together—”

“Oh, like you’ve never done that before.”

“—you’d think you’d be a little more careful not to break us up for the sake of a title.”

“Meg’s a writer,” Jaquie says. She flicks a speck of invisible dust off her trousers. “They’re fickle like that. Are we going to the club?”

Freddie insists that they eat first, and Meg insists that their food be portable, so as to minimize the time before they can start dancing. When Peter gets tired of the bickering, he pulls them all into a fish and chips place, which no one’s ecstatic about, but everyone can live with.

“Ugh, grease,” Meg says, as she drops her wrapper in the trash. She rubs her hands together, which of course does nothing to de-grease them. Freddie hands her one of the napkins she’s apparently been hoarding in her purse.

The first club is fun, but they leave after an hour because the strobe lights are hurting Freddie’s head. The second club is a notch or two quieter, with considerably better music, and it’s an hour and a half at least before Peter realizes Jaquie’s not dancing with them anymore. He waves at Meg and Freddie to let them know he’s taking a break, and sets off to find her.

It doesn’t take long. She’s at the bar, sipping a beer and watching the dance floor impassively.

“Hey,” Peter says, slipping into the seat next to her. “You okay?”

“Just danced out. You don’t have to sit with me, I’m fine here.”

“If you want to go home, I can walk you.”

“My hero,” says Jaquie, totally monotone. “I don’t want to go home. I want to sit here and watch drunk people try to dance.”

“That guy,” Peter says, pointing at a man whose bleached blonde hair glows like stick-on stars in the dance floor lights. “Creep Count.”

This is a favorite game of his and Jaquie’s to play with the customers at Navarre Bar. There’s also “Guess the Drink Order,” and an over-under on when in the night they’ll first have to kick someone out, but those are harder games to play at a club they don’t work at.

“Eh. Four.”

“Really? I thought for sure he’d be over five.”

Jaquie shakes her head, in what Peter has come to understand is an expression of patience with his naivete and general wrongness.

Two drinks later, they’ve moved on to constructing elaborate backstories for all the dancers (well, Peter’s are elaborate; Jaquie just says everyone’s a spy), when Freddie joins them. She’s flushed and bright-eyed, and looks less stressed than Peter’s seen her in weeks.

“Move it,” she says, cheerfully pushing Peter’s chair to the left so there’s space for her on the seat next to him. Peter overbalances and falls, laughing, into Jaquie, who pushes him upright.

“Sorry, sorry!” Freddie brushes off his sleeves, as if that will do anything.

“You’re so violent,” Peter says.

“It was an accident!”

“You’ll protect me from her, right, Jaquie?”

“Probably,” Jaquie says.

“Hey!” Peter and Freddie protest, at the same time. Jaquie pats Peter on the head, then reaches around him and does the same to Freddie.

They end up ordering another round of drinks and watching Meg dance. Due first to youth, then to distance, Peter has never properly gone _out_ with Meg, and it’s exactly as great as he’d have guessed. On a technical level, Meg’s not the world’s greatest dancer, but she owns the floor. Nobody in the club—nobody in all New Zealand, probably—is having as good a time as Meg, right now.

“Think we’re about to be abandoned?” Freddie says, as they watch Meg stop to chat with a guy, then fish her phone from her purse, obviously to put his number in it. But when the guy tries to get her to keep dancing with him, she laughs him off, pushing him toward his friends. A minute later, she joins Peter, Freddie, and Jaquie at the bar.

There are no seats left, so Peter tries to stand to give her his, but he stumbles a little and falls back onto the stool.

“Keep it, Drunk-aldson,” Meg says. “You need it more than me.” She wedges herself between him and Freddie and orders a tequila shot, then leans back against the bar, surveying the dance floor with a kind of satisfaction. Peter has to admit that it looks much emptier with her gone.

“Having a good time?” he asks.

“Can’t complain.” She raises an eyebrow. “Ew. PDA, much?”

Peter follows her line of sight and spots phone-number guy, who is messily making out with a tall brunette girl over in a corner.

“You’re one to talk,” Peter says. “Remember you and Robbie?”

Meg’s other eyebrow raises to join the first.

“Remember you and _everyone_?” Freddie says. Meg laughs and reaches around Peter to high-five her.

A pang of discomfort pierces through Peter’s pleasant buzz, but he pushes it down. Freddie’s not exactly _wrong_ , and he’s not ashamed. Not of that, anyway.

“See, this is unfair. Your relationship was a secret for the first two months. That’s the prime PDA time,” Peter says.

“Pete. Have you _ever_ seen me and Kit kiss?”

Peter thinks back: movie nights, welcome parties, pillow fights. “Oh my god, I _haven’t_ . Are you _monks_?”

“No, we’re discreet.” Freddie looks forlornly at her empty glass. “I’ve run out of alcohol.”

“Four more shots, please,” Peter says to the bartender, raising his voice to be heard past the music.

“Just three, actually,” Jaquie says. The bartender nods and starts preparing the drinks.

It’s a little early for Jaquie to cut herself off, but she’s been a little down all night, so maybe she’s just not feeling it. Peter considers asking her if she’s really okay, but he’s concerned she might murder him.

When the bartender sets the drinks in front of them, though, Jaquie takes the one in front of Peter. She gives him a pointed look, then throws it back like it’s water.

If it had been Freddie or Meg, he might’ve been pissed, but it’s Jaquie. She’s never overreacted to anything in her life. She knows every single shade of drunkenness in general, and Peter’s drunkenness in particular, and she doesn’t give a shit about the harmless ones. If Jaquie thinks it’s time for him to stop, it’s time for him to stop.

Meg and Freddie down their shots, and Jaquie says something, and everyone laughs, but Peter fades out and just floats for a while, letting them talk around him.

He loves these people. He loves his life. It’s _so good_. Sure, he has exams he has to study for, a job that sucks sometimes like all jobs do, and every once in a while—not often, but occasionally, and unpredictably—the darkness from last year creeps up on him, and he has to work to remember that things are good. That he’s good. But they are, and he is.

If only Balthazar had been here, tonight would’ve been perfect.

 

#

 

As much as he misses Peter while he’s out—which, they sleep in the same room, it’s silly that Balthazar should miss him after three hours, but he _does_ —Balthazar has to admit that it’s a lot easier to get work done without Peter popping in and out of the room, changing shirts, fixing his hair, picking up a book he’d forgotten, and stopping to chat for a quarter of an hour each time. So far tonight, Balthazar has outlined an essay on Victorian detective stories, made and reviewed flashcards for his world history lecture, and read about a third of the _Metamorphoses_. If Pete were around, he’d probably still be halfway through the flashcards.

After forty-five minutes of Ovid, Balthazar’s eyes start to glaze a bit, so he’s about to switch to his composition assignment when there’s a timid knock at his door. He sighs and rubs his eyes, but honestly, it’s such a relief to once again be living with people who _knock_ that he can’t complain much, even internally.

“Yeah, come in,” he calls.

The door squeaks open and Kit pokes his head in. “He lives,” Kit says.

Balthazar frowns. “I thought you were going out with the others.”

“I was, but I forgot I have an exam tomorrow at like 9 in the morning, so it’s not really the night for it. I’ve got time for nice, _quiet_ fun, though.” He holds a Scrabble box aloft in the air. “Wanna Scrabble?”

Balthazar rubs his eyes again. “I would, it’s just I really need to get this work done.”

“I feel that,” Kit says, nodding. “I just thought it might be good to get Hero out of her room.”

“Is she okay?” Balthazar had retreated to his room immediately after getting home today, so he hadn’t seen Hero at all.

“She just seemed really down when I saw her. I don’t think anything’s _wrong_ wrong, but if she’s having a bad day… friends are good.”

“Yeah, all right,” Balthazar says. He closes the _Metamorphoses_ and puts it on top of his essay outline. “Let’s Scrabble.”

Balthazar sets up the board on the table while Kit goes to get Hero. She emerges from her room looking maybe a little drawn, but not like she’s been crying, or anything. Is she always this pale? It’s hard to say.

When _was_ the last time he saw Hero, anyway? Balthazar tries to count backwards, but he loses track halfway through the week. He definitely saw her over the weekend, though. Peter had had the entire flat watching _Flight of the Conchords_ again.

“We should call Paige and Chelsey,” Hero says, taking a seat across from Balth. “Make a real night of it.”

“If we have five people, we can play something more interesting than Scrabble,” Balthazar says. “That’s Betrayal numbers.”

“No, I like Scrabble! And I always end up the traitor in Betrayal.”

“Paige and Chelsey are in Dargaville. It’s Chelsey’s mum’s birthday,” Kit says. He draws a tile from the bag. C. “Haha, beat _that_.”

“Where’d you even get a Scrabble board?” Balthazar asks, while Hero draws. He’s almost certain Kit doesn’t own one.

“It’s Freddie’s,” Kit says, but he’s drowned out by Hero slamming her tile on the table. It’s an A.

“A _ha_!” she says.

Balthazar draws an M, so Hero goes first. The game quickly develops into a heated contest between Hero’s vocabulary and Balthazar’s ability to plan ahead and save up good tiles for triple word scores. Kit falls behind immediately, mostly because, as far as Balthazar can tell, he has no patience for strategy, and always places the first word he sees.

It’s a good time. Hero’s less withdrawn than Balthazar would’ve expected, and she wins, which is nice. Afterwards, Kit makes omelets, which breaks Balthazar’s five-day streak of veganism—his longest since he lived with Vegan Fred—but it’s okay, because they eat them while watching _Doctor Who_ , which Hero has been trying to turn them onto for ages. Balthazar isn’t very impressed, but he doesn’t say so. Kit thinks it’s hysterical. And it does get a little better as they go.

The only real downside of the night, so far as Balthazar can see, is that he doesn’t get nearly as much work done as he’d intended. And that when he goes to bed, Peter still isn’t home yet.

 

**May**

Ben shakes things up a bit, in May. The flat receives a plain white envelope, just after Freddie’s birthday. Postmark: London. As usual, there’s no name on it, only the flat’s address, but in the corner, Ben’s drawn something that is just barely recognizable as two swords, crossed. Freddie finds the envelope on her way in from her afternoon run, and saves it until everyone else is home. As is becoming tradition, Peter opens it.

Inside, there are two receipts. One is for two English breakfasts at Pedro’s Café. The other is for two cappuccinos at Costa Coffee. While everyone else is laughing, Hero examines the receipts more closely and discovers that both shops are on Cricklewood Broadway, and very close to each other.

“He probably looked up Pedro’s, and then saw the coffeehouse on the way,” Hero says.

“He has stupidly good luck,” Peter says. “Here, give it to me, I’ll pass it along to Costa.”

The Pedro’s receipt goes in the box on Peter and Balth’s bureau, along with the keychain and postcard.

 

#

 

“Freddie’s thinking movie night tonight,” Peter says, flopping backward on the bed. It’s good to be home. He has four lectures on Wednesdays, and he’d filled in for Jaquie at the bar last night. “You don’t have work, do you?”

Balthazar dumps his copy of _The Complete Stories of Sherlock Holmes_ atop the pile of books that they never did get around to moving out to the front room. “Nah, Cory wanted the shift. But I’ve got that exam Friday, so I should really study.”

“Come on, you can take a couple hours for a movie. Or even _Doctor Who_ .” Peter doesn’t understand _Doctor Who_ at all, but Balthazar’s had something of a conversion since Hero introduced him to it last month.

“I really can’t, though,” Balthazar says. He doesn’t raise his voice at all, but there’s a bite to his words. Peter props himself up on his elbows so he can talk to Balth more directly.

“That’s what you said like the last three times. We’re not going out to a club, we’re watching a movie _in our own flat_. It’s two hours. You can bring your stupid notes with you and review while we watch.”

“They’re not stupid, and it kinda defeats the point of studying if I’m watching a movie at the same time.”

“We haven’t been out together since our first date.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“What does that have to do with you _always working_?”

Peter can hear his voice teetering on the edge of a yell, and he tries to pull himself back in. The last time he’d yelled at Balthazar, he’s pretty sure, was that awful night before the rules were instituted.

“You’re busy too, you know,” Balthazar says. His voice is still at the same volume, which is kind of infuriating. “You’ve been picking up way more shifts than usual.”

“Yeah, which means I can drop one pretty much any time, if you want to go out.” Still not quite yelling, but Peter hasn’t managed to get back to a legitimate indoor voice, yet.

“Fine, then. Let’s go out.”

Peter is already three sentences ahead in his head, working out what he’s going to say to Balthazar’s next objection, so it takes him a moment to backtrack and respond to what Balth actually said. “What, like, tonight?”

“No, but next week, maybe. Just, not to that restaurant.”

Peter laughs, because this is good. This is better than he’d have hoped for. “Yeah, I think restaurants should be crossed off the Date Night list. Is there a concert or something you want to go to?”

“I’ll look into it.”

“Good. Good.” Peter leaps off the bed, rejuvenated, and kisses Balth. “I’m gonna make coffee. You want some?”

“Yeah, okay.”

Peter spends the rest of the night a little more cheerful. It doesn’t even bother him all that much when Balthazar doesn’t come out for movie night.

 

#

 

It’s midnight, and Balthazar’s just starting to think about going to bed, when he gets the text.

_Jaquie and i are going out after work. Dont wait up. Love._

It’s not the first time Peter’s sent him a text like this, though he doesn’t do it often; usually, if he’s going out, he’s planned ahead of time. And Balthazar doesn’t really have a problem with Peter going out after work as long as he’s not slowly killing himself, and he trusts Peter, and he does appreciate the heads-up. Which is why he texts back, _Have fun. Love,_ and heads to bed.

But it takes him twice as long to fall asleep, on nights like this.

Despite his restless sleep—maybe because of it—Balthazar wakes up early the next morning. The time on his phone is 7:02 a.m. The sheets next to him are empty.

Balthazar sits up, wide awake the moment he realizes Peter isn’t in bed with him. He checks his phone—no messages. He glances over at the planner on the wall, to see if Peter has an early-morning appointment he’d forgotten. Nothing.

He’s halfway panicked already, but he makes himself slow down. Maybe Pete got up early. (Unlikely.) Maybe he’s in the bathroom. (He’d be back by now.) Maybe he crashed at Jaquie’s. (He’d have texted.) It’s not time to panic, yet.

Taking deep breaths, Balthazar heads into the front room. He finds Peter immediately, asleep on the brown couch, curled up under one of the spare blankets from the hot water cupboard. Balthazar’s heart performs a feat that it’s only ever done for Peter: It sinks and soars, simultaneously. Peter is fine. He’s not in E.R., or passed out in an alley somewhere, or any of the places Balthazar used to fear. He’s just drunk a little too much. Nothing he won’t recover from.

But damn, if this scene doesn’t dig into raw spots Balthazar hadn’t even known he had.

Balthazar shuffles into the kitchen and, as quietly as possible, gets out a glass and fills it with water. He tries to remember where they’ve put the Panadol. Did they ever refill it, even, after Freddie got over her cold the other week?

He’s rummaging through the spice cupboard—sometimes Kit and Peter put drugs there, if they don’t feel like returning them to the harder-to-reach medicine cabinet—when Peter walks, yawning, into the kitchen.

“Morning, Balth,” he says sleepily.

Balthazar takes a moment to catch up with what’s happening; he hadn’t expected to see Peter up for hours. “Morning,” he says.

“Can you grab the coffee while you’re in there?” Peter says, nodding at the open spice cupboard. He pops the tank out of the coffee machine and starts filling it at the sink.

Balthazar dumps the bag of grounds on the counter. “Do you know where the Panadol is?”

“We’re out, aren’t we? Why, do you feel all right?”

Peter looks honestly concerned, and Balthazar stares at him. “It’s for _you_ ,” he says, and he doesn’t mean to make it sound biting, he really doesn’t, but something slips through.

“Wait,” Peter says, looking from Balthazar to the glass of water on the counter. “I’m not hungover, Balth.”

“Oh.” Balth studies Peter. Still in his work clothes from the night before, his hair sticking up on one side, but he _doesn’t_ look hungover. Just tired. “You’re not?”

“No. I haven’t even had a hangover since… New Year’s, I guess.”

“Oh,” Balthazar says again. “Good.”

He slips past Peter and out of the kitchen. He’s not sure why he’s still annoyed—maybe his feelings just haven’t had time to catch up to the facts—but he is, and he wants out.

Unfortunately, Peter follows him. “Are you mad at me?”

“Nah,” Balthazar says. He doesn’t turn around, or even stop walking, headed for their room.

“Balthazar.”

“I’m just gonna get dressed, Pete.”

But Peter follows him into the bedroom as well, and Balthazar realizes he’s made a strategic error; if he leaves now, Peter will _know_ he’s avoiding him. So he pulls a shirt off the hanger.

“You’re mad at me,” Peter says.

“I’m really not.”

“You’re _acting_ like you’re mad at me.”

Balthazar pulls the shirt over his head. It gives him a second of dark alone-ness, and he uses it to gather himself together. When he’s back out in the light, he says, calmly and casually, “Why did you sleep on the couch last night?”

Peter quirks an eyebrow. “Is _that_ what this is about?”

“I’m just wondering,” Balthazar says, busying himself pulling on his jeans.

“It was like four a.m. when I got home. I didn’t want to wake you.”

“Well, just come to bed next time. I don’t mind being woken.”

Balthazar kisses Peter on the cheek and leaves the room. When Peter rejoins him in the kitchen, he heads straight to the coffee maker, and seems to have forgotten Balthazar was ever angry.

 

**June**

June’s “gift from abroad”—Hero’s phrase for them, and the accepted terminology in the flat, though Peter’s apt to come up with more colorful nicknames, depending on his mood—arrives in another bubble envelope. Postmark: Nastola.

The contents of the envelope are so light that they don’t fall out when Peter opens it and turns it up over his hand. He ends up having fish around in the envelope for a minute before pulling out a single, ten-centimeter-square swatch of textured grey fabric.

“Is that it?” Freddie asks.

“Yeah.”

“Look again!”

“ _You_ look, if it means that much to you.”

Freddie snatches the envelope from Peter’s hand and searches it thoroughly, but eventually concedes that Peter was right; the cloth was the only thing in it.

There follows a brief, lively debate over what the fuck this is supposed to mean. After a few minutes, Balthazar ruins the fun by pulling out his phone and googling “pedro nastola.”

“It’s a furniture factory,” he says, showing the others the results.

“You mean a furniture _store_ ,” Freddie says.

“No, a factory.”

Freddie, Peter, Hero, and Kit examine the photos and map results, and they all eventually agree that, yes, Ben has sent them a swatch of fabric from the Pedro Oy furniture factory in Nastola, Finland.

“Oh, there’s a story here,” Peter says.

But when pressed on the matter, Ben denies all knowledge.

 

#

 

Peter wakes up late, the second Saturday in June. He’d gotten in from his shift at 2 a.m., but he must have been more tired than usual, because when he rolls over to check the time on his phone, it’s nearly noon. He’s alone in bed, which isn’t a surprise; Balthazar’s an early riser, and Peter knows he and Paige were planning to meet this morning to work out a new song.

Actually, Peter thinks as he stretches and rolls out of bed, he might have the flat to himself at the moment. Freddie has a politics study group that meets Saturday mornings—she’d invited Peter to join, but with his work schedule, that’s just not happening. Hero likes to run around this time, he knows, and she’s been getting into distance running lately, so she might not back for hours. Kit, he’s nearly certain, has a shift at Boyet’s today.

He _is_ . He’s alone in the flat. This _never_ happens. He should make the most of this. Because he is extremely cool, Peter decides he will capitalize on his unexpected solitude by, a) not putting on a shirt before leaving his room, and b) watching anime very loudly with no headphones in the front room.

This thrilling plan lasts until the moment Peter walks out of his room and comes face to face with Meg, who is sitting at the table and has just taken the first bite of the largest omelet that Peter has ever personally laid eyes on.

Peter jumps backward in shock. “Jesus! Meg!”

Meg calmly chews and swallows before she speaks. “Pedro. Thanks for dressing up for me.”

Peter crosses his arms over his bare chest. “I didn’t know there was anyone here. What are you _doing_ here?”

“Satisfying my egg craving.”

“Is there anyone here _with_ you? Wait, are those _our_ eggs?”

“Let’s see. No, and yes,” Meg says, punctuating each answer with a little jab of her fork in the air.

“So you just let yourself into our flat and made an omelet?”

“Omelet privileges seem like the least you can do, after last year.”

Peter gives her an unimpressed look—not one of his high-octane ones, but still, a _look_ —and Meg sighs.

“I texted Balthy, and he said it was fine,” she says.

“Oh, like Balthazar was going to say no. That’s basically the same as not asking.”

Meg pouts. Peter rolls his eyes.

“I’m going to get dressed,” he says.

By the time Peter has put on a shirt, made himself coffee, and joined Meg at the table, she’s still only made it through a quarter of the omelet. Peter watches her eat for a few moments with a kind of fascination. She makes a production out of each bite, cutting them off in precise squares and savoring them as though this were the last omelet on Earth.

“Doesn’t Vegan Fred let you keep eggs in the house?”

Meg glares at him. “Vegan Fred doesn’t _let_ me do anything. He’s my flatmate, not my father.”

“Sorry, you’re just making love to that omelet. It’s indecent.”

“God, if you ever catch me making love _decently_ , just kill me right then.” Meg slices another tidy square off her omelet, pops it in her mouth, and closes her eyes. Peter is fairly sure that this is the image that will spring to mind in the future, whenever someone says the word _hedonist_. “Fred’s such a good cook that most of the time I just don’t care about the vegan thing. But every once in a while, I wake up, and all I want in the world is a real egg.”

“Your life sounds awful,” Peter says, with great sincerity.

“Make fun if you want, but I am enjoying this omelet more than you’ve ever enjoyed anything in your life.”

“It certainly looks like it.”

This, for whatever reason, breaks their patter, and Peter and Meg both laugh. Peter leans back in his chair to watch her slowly devour her omelet.

He likes Meg. Maybe it’s weird for that thought to hit him so strongly right now, after five years of friendship, but then, he and Meg are closer than they’ve ever been. She’d always been more Hero and Bea’s friend, in high school. Peter gets the sense that she’d found him a little bit boring, all football and perfect grades and responsibility. The last two years of fuck-ups and experimentation and wild romance seem to have endeared him to her.

“Would it be weird if I ask you for relationship advice?” Peter says.

A look of triumphant delight—kind of like when the Wicked Witch of the West has captured Dorothy at last—breaks across Meg’s face, but she quickly suppresses it. “Just this once, but then I’m going to start charging you.”

“You’re going to charge me for advice. Are you a character in a comic strip?”

“I refuse to perpetuate a sexist system of unpaid emotional labor.”

“ _Unpaid emotional labor_?”

Meg rolls her eyes. “Didn’t you read my last article?”

Peter has not, in fact, read her last article. He hasn’t read one of Meg’s articles in months, because they’re mostly about things he’s not interested in—human interest profiles of notable kiwis, write-ups on the next big foodie trend, that kind of thing. His expression must give some of that away, because Meg’s face falls.

“I haven’t read anything outside of school for about a month,” Peter lies quickly. “If you saw my politics textbooks, you’d understand why.”

Meg’s face recovers a smidge, and Peter resolves to read her articles from here on out, whether he’s interested or not.

“This kind of _is_ political, you know,” she says.

“It sounds really interesting,” Peter says, which is true. He senses a feminist lecture somewhere at the bottom of it. “Tell me about it.”

Meg sighs. “Oh, it’s just about how women are always being called on to reassure men, and listen to them, and give them advice, and generally soothe their fragile, fragile egos, and get nothing in return.”

“So when you charge me for relationship advice, you’re just demanding payment for your emotional labor.”

“Yes. That is correct.”

“What if I just paid you by giving _you_ relationship advice?”

“But I, queen that I am, do not _need_ advice from a lowly peasant such as yourself,” Meg says, flipping her hair back.

“What if I paid you by the fact that you’re eating my eggs?”

Meg chews on this—literally, she’s just taken a bite—then nods firmly. “Yeah, all right. Payment accepted. The emotional labor may now begin.”

“Thanks, Your Majesty.” Peter bows as much as he can while sitting down. Then he sighs and cups a hand around his mug. “I think I’ve done something to upset Balthazar.”

“What makes you say that? Did you have a fight?”

“A couple, I guess, but that was mostly my fault. It’s more like I’m just getting a kind of annoyed vibe off him, sometimes. And he’s working all the time, which is partly just Balthazar, I know, but it always felt like it got worse, last year, when he was upset with me.”

“Wait, back up,” Meg says, making the “back-up” motion with her fingers, presumably in case Peter doesn’t get the point. “Tell me more about these fights you’re at fault for.”

“I mean, they’re not _bad_ fights or anything. We’re not, you know, screaming at each other. It’s just normal couple stuff.”

“Right, but why are they your fault?”

That is not a question with an obvious answer. Peter sips his coffee to buy himself time to think.

“‘Cause it’s like, I’m the only one fighting,” he says.

“Elaborate.”

Peter crosses his arms as much as he can with the coffee cup still in his hand. “Why? This isn’t what I was trying to talk about.”

“Pedro Donaldson, if you want my relationship advice, you will answer my relationship questions.”

“Fine, but if this conversation lasts twice as long as it should, I’m not making you more eggs.”

“I’ve eaten your cooking. Trust me, I don’t want you to make me eggs. Elaborate.”

Peter rolls his eyes for what must surely be the hundredth time since he woke up all of twenty minutes ago. “I don’t remember what I was saying.”

“You’re the only one fighting.”

“Right.” He spins his coffee cup around in his hands. “I mean, you know, it’s Balthazar. I start fighting with him about something, and he just kinda checks out until it’s over. Do you think that’s why he’s upset? Because I keep picking fights?”

“How should I know? I’m not psychic.”

“Then what are we even talking about this for?” Peter snaps.

Meg calmly sets down her fork on top of the remaining half of her omelet. “If you keep yelling at me, you can keep your eggs, and I’ll leave.”

Peter deflates. He sets his mug down and buries his face in his hands. “Sorry,” he says. “Sorry. That was out of line.”

“Well, that’s where you live half your life, isn’t it?” Meg picks her silverware back up and resumes eating. “I hesitate to even ask, but what are you picking fights about?”

“The work thing, mostly.”

“And you think that’s why he’s upset with you? Because you’re bugging him to get out of his room more?”

Peter shrugs. “I don’t know. I know he hates it when I get on his case about that, but I worry about him.”

“Well, I’m not about to tell you not to worry about your boyfriend, but maybe you’re going about it wrong.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s Balthy, right? The more you confront him about something, the more he retreats. If you want him to work less, maybe you just need to stop talking about it so much.”

“You’re telling me _not_ to talk to my boyfriend.”

“I’m telling you to back off a little and see if it helps.”

Peter considers this. He can see the weird, Meg-like logic of it, and he’s even willing to concede she has a point. But it’s not _enough_. “I just feel like I’ve done something wrong, and he won’t tell me what it is. That’s the other thing we fight about. He’ll get all quiet and upset, and I’ll ask him what I did, and he’ll just… walk away.”

“Hmm.” Meg studies her omelet thoughtfully. “That does sound like it’s not about school.”

“So what do I do?”

Meg smiles and shakes her head. “Oh, Pedro. You’re so predictable.”

“That’s really useful to hear, Meg.”

“Your problem,” Meg says, giving no indication that she’s heard him, “is that you think you need to _do_ something. But look, you’ve told Balthazar how you feel, haven’t you? You’ve told him you’re worried about him working so much, and you’ve told him you feel like he’s upset with you. I mean, I’m sure you said it in a really Pedro way, and you should probably try it again more calmly, but you’ve said all that.”

“Yeah?”

“Well, then, you’ve done your part. It’s Balthazar’s turn.”

“Yeah, but he won’t _talk_ to me.”

“And there’s nothing you can do that’s going to magically change that.” Meg sighs. “Look, just try one more time. Be really calm and clear about it, so there’s no horrible miscommunication, and tell him what’s going on with you. And then he’ll either talk to you or he won’t.”

“But what if he doesn’t?”

“I think he will, if you just give him a little space. He loves you, like, an insane amount. He just turns into a little stressball sometimes, and you pushing the issue probably isn’t helping.”

Peter’s coffee is lukewarm now, but he sips it anyway. It gives him something to do while thinking. Meg is making a lot of sense. He still feels like there must be something he’s _done_ , something he can fix, but maybe if he tries Meg’s strategy, Balth will tell him what that is. And it’s a pretty low-risk plan; if he backs off for a week or so, and it doesn’t work, he can always try something else.

“Yeah,” he says. “Okay. I’ll do that. Or I’ll _not_ do that, I guess.”

“Good,” Meg says. She pats his hand kindly. “Smart boy. Do you guys have any ice cream?”

 

#

 

“Do you and Freddie fight?” Balthazar asks. He and Kit are on campus, sipping Boyet’s coffee at an outdoor table. It’s a regular thing, for them; they’ve both got an hour free between classes, on Tuesdays, and they usually spend it together.

“I think you know we do,” Kit says.

“I’ve never seen it.”

“Remember last year? Sardines? A bunch of crazy people making a bunch of crazy rules about your dating life? Coming to stay at Vegan Fred’s?”

Balthazar laughs. “I meant since then.”

“Hm.” Kit shrugs. “Yeah, we fight, I guess.”

“How come I’ve never heard about it?”

“Freddie doesn’t like fighting in front of people. I don’t either, really.”

“Yeah, who does, I guess?” Balthazar sips his coffee more out of habit than desire. The only problem with having coffee _with_ Kit is that it means Kit’s not on-duty to _make_ the coffee, and not all of the baristas are of his caliber. “I just can’t imagine you guys, like, actually fighting.”

“Well, _fighting_ is maybe not the right word,” Kit says. “We have a codeword.”

Balthazar cracks a grin. “Fascinating, but not really the kind of fighting I was talking about.

It takes a minute for Kit to get over his giggles, but eventually, he calms down. “No, like, Freddie gets her way most of the time, ‘cause she cares more than me. I kinda put my opinion out there, and if she likes it, that’s what happens, and if she doesn’t, it doesn’t. But if I _really_ care about something, we have this codeword, and that’s how she knows she has to back up and, like, compromise.”

Balthazar can just imagine. “What’s the codeword?”

Kit laughs and shakes his head. “Some things you gotta keep to the privacy of the marriage bed.”

When they’re done laughing about that, Kit says, “So, are you just really curious about me and Freddie fighting, or did you have a reason for asking?”

“Oh, you know.” Balthazar swirls the dregs of his coffee around in the cup. “Peter and I are just having… I dunno.”

“Oh, yes, ‘I dunno.’ The source of all relationship tension. I’m always reading about that in the advice columns.”

“Sometimes, you are not funny at all,” Balthazar says with a smile. He sighs and lets it fall from his face. “Peter keeps picking fights.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like, we’ll be getting along, and then he doesn’t yell or anything, but it’s like he’s trying to make _me_ yell at him.”

“All right, I’m gonna ask again, because I have no idea what you’re talking about. What do you mean?”

Balthazar ducks his face into his arms for a moment. “Like, he keeps going on about how I work too much.”

“But you _do_ work too much.”

“I work a normal amount!”

Kit laughs and waves his words aside. “If you say so. Get back to what you’re saying.”

“I mean, that’s just what I _am_ saying. He keeps making a _thing_ out of things. Or like, he’ll keep asking me if I’m mad at him, and then he won’t let it go. It just feels like he _wants_ us to be fighting.”

“Yeah, but he’s Peter. I mean, isn’t that kind of his deal?”

Balthazar shakes his head. “Not like this. Like yeah, he likes to instigate things, but only if it’s fun, y’know? Or something he doesn’t care about. There’s nothing fun about this. It’s like…”

“Like last year?”

The look on Kit’s face is utterly neutral. Balthazar assumes he’s working hard to keep it that way. Kit heard a lot of stories about Peter, last year, and Balthazar knows he still doesn’t entirely approve of the man.

“Not exactly,” Balthazar says slowly. “He’s not… I mean, when he used to pick fights last year, it was kind of ugly, and this isn’t like that at all. But I’m worried he’s like, trying to push me away.”

Kit _hmm_ s and examines the rim of his coffee cup. “Are you just venting, or do you want advice?”

“Advice would be good. You and Freddie seem to have your shit together.”

“Me and Freddie don’t have nearly as much shit to keep track of,” Kit says with a raised eyebrow. “Well, let me ask you this. Are you mad at him?”

“Like, in general?”

“No, I mean, you said he keeps asking if you’re mad at him. Is he doing that when you’re being chill, like, ‘I’m just gonna play my music and be at peace with the world’ Balthazar, or when you’re being, you know, ‘I’m really pissed off right now but I’m not gonna say anything’ Balthazar?”

“I’m not that bad. ”

Kit looks him dead in the eye and says, “ _Bro_.”

Balthazar laughs, because Kit really does get him, and come to think of it, Peter _still_ doesn’t know that song was about him, does he? “Yeah, all right, I guess I bottle things up sometimes. What was the question, again?”

“Just, when Peter’s asking you if you’re mad, is it out of nowhere, or are you actually mad?”

“Well, that was mostly the one time. He’d gone out with Jaquie, and he came home at three or four, I guess, and when I woke up at like seven, I found him on the couch. And it turned out he wasn’t even hungover, or anything, he just didn’t want to wake me up, but I guess it kind of brought up some memories? I dunno, it makes me kinda twitchy when he drinks. Like, it’s not bad, or anything, I mean, you’ve seen him, but it’s like a, what’s it called? A conditioned reaction.”

“But you didn’t say that.”

“It’s not up to me to tell him not to drink. It’s my problem, not his.”

“Yeah, but obviously he can tell there’s something going on, so…” Kit blows out a breath. “Look, you know I’m not the guy’s biggest fan, but maybe he’s not pushing you away. Maybe you’ve just got these two simple problems.”

“What are those?”

“His drinking makes you uncomfortable, and you’re working too much.”

“I’m not working too much! Peter just thinks I am ‘cause he can stay out all night and skim the book in the morning and get an A- on the exam in the afternoon. He actually did that, last week. Everything’s easy for him, but I actually need to study.”

“You take it way too seriously, though.” Kit pauses and looks away, and Balthazar knows him well enough by now to know that he’s preparing a precision strike. Sure enough, when he looks back, he says, “ _Hero_ thinks you take it too seriously.”

The strike hits its target. “You’re lying,” Balthazar says.

“No, she mentioned it the other day. She said she never sees you anymore, you’re always working. Which, by the way, is kinda true for me, too.”

Balthazar slumps back in his seat. It’s one thing to write off Peter’s concern, and even—though he’d never say it to his face—Kit’s, because neither of them has a normal person’s concept of the correct amount of attention to devote to school. If Hero thinks he’s overdoing it, though, he may need to examine his work/life balance.

“Yeah, all right,” he says.

“It’s a good thing, honestly,” Kit says.

“How’s that?”

“Because if you’re actually working too much—which you are—then maybe this thing with Peter isn’t as big a deal as all that. Maybe you just need to work out these two things, and you’ll be fine.”

Balthazar makes a face, and Kit laughs. He mimes writing something down.

“I, Dr. Kitso Harper, am writing you a prescription. It’s an awful-tasting medicine. Tastes like fake cherries. But you’re gonna have to take it anyway.” Kit pretends to rip the prescription off the pad and hands it to Balthazar, who pretends to take it from him, laughing. “You, Balthazar Jones, need to go talk to your boyfriend about your feelings.”

 

**Interlude**

The view from the flat is beautiful, but Hero’s not sure it’s worth the uphill climb, especially not when she’s just finished a six-mile run. Freddie insists that it’s nothing, if you’re in shape, but Hero’s pretty sure that’s just talk; the few times she and Freddie have run together, she’s definitely seen Freddie huffing and puffing on the way up. Maybe those were just bad days, though. Hero stopped running with Freddie after only a few times, because Freddie is _very particular_ about her pace and path, and Hero likes to change things up, taking new turns and stopping now and then to look in an interesting shop or appreciate a lovely tree.

Right now, though, she mostly wants to be at the top of this freaking hill, already. She wants a glass of water, and then a glass of something full of sugar, and then a shower, and by then it should be just about time to Skype with Leo, and between that and the run, she’ll be able to breathe for long enough to get some work done.

Hero rounds the bend in the ramp up to the flat. Only a couple dozen meters to go. The song she’s listening to ends—“A Noble Girl About Town”—and Hero pulls out her headphones. Without the _Doctor Who_ soundtrack pounding in her ears, she can hear the sounds of the world around her: cars passing on the street below, a strong gust of wind, her own slightly labored breaths, and two voices, floating down from the courtyard. Pedro and Balthazar.

“...not your issue, it’s _my_ issue,” Balthazar says.

“Yeah, but it’s about me. It’s ‘cause of things I did.”

Hero tries to soften her breathing, so it’s not so loud. She’d really rather not interrupt this conversation. Pedro and Balth have been miserable for weeks—when Balth is even _around_ —and if they’re finally talking things out, maybe it’ll make them both happier.

Selfishly, Hero realizes, she partly wants Pedro and Balth to cheer up because if they do, it’ll make the flat fun again. She really needs the flat to be fun, right now.

“That’s not the point, though.”

“Well, what _is_ the point?” Pedro says. He sounds a bit exasperated.

“You’re not doing anything wrong. I’m not gonna, like, tell you how to live your life, just because I have this thing. This is why I didn’t tell you in the first place, because you shouldn’t have to rearrange your life around my hang-ups.”

Hero tip-toes around the final bend in the ramp. If she sticks very close to the side, Pedro and Balthazar won’t see her around the corner of the house.

“Okay, well, what if I don’t _rearrange_ my life, what if I just, I dunno, rotate it, a little?”

“What are you even talking about?”

“There’ve gotta be things I can do that’ll make it less uncomfortable for you. Like not passing out on the couch, I know that’s a big one.”

“Well, yeah, but…”

Very, very carefully, Hero twists the knob on the front door. It’s a fairly squeaky door, so she pushes it open slowly.

“If I made sure to text you when I’m out, would that help?”

“I don’t want to keep you on a leash, though. You should be able to go out without worrying about me all night.”

“Yeah, ‘cause texting my boyfriend is such a huge burden.”

Hero inches the door shut behind her. It latches with the softest of _click_ s, blocking out Pedro and Balthazar’s voices.

By the time Pedro and Balthazar come inside, Hero’s already showered and Skyped with Leo. She’s brought her schoolwork out into the front room, partly because the talk with Leo left her in a sociable mood—he’s responding well to chemo, it turns out—and partly because she wants to see how Pedro and Balthazar’s conversation went.

They’re holding hands when they walk in the door. Hero smiles.


	2. July - December

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The even-more-belated second half of my Christmas gift to marydebenham. Includes: Drama! Humor! Larceny! Baking! Increasingly cracked-out meta references to Love's Labour's Lost! Spoilers for season three of _Angel_!

**July**

The flat is so conditioned to watching for Ben’s gifts from abroad that they nearly miss July’s. It comes, not to the flat’s mailbox, but to Peter’s email inbox. The subject line is “Greetings from Padua!” Peter, who knows full well where Bea and Ben are this month, thinks it’s a regular email. He’s about to click it open when he sees the sender: pedropedropedropedro@gmail.com.

The flat opens the email together that night. It contains no words, only a picture of the words “CSO PEDRO” spray painted in red block letters on a low grey brick wall, and a thirty-second .mp3 file of loud, discordant music in a foreign language. Balthazar covers his ears while Peter googles.

“Yeah, it’s a club,” he says.

“It’s a crime,” Balthazar says.

Peter sends a reply to the email: _No more music, please. —Pedro_

“Isn’t that egging him on?” Hero says, pointing at the name.

“Not as much as signing it ‘Peter’ would.”

Peter prints out the picture and puts it in the box with the rest of Ben’s gifts.

 

#

 

The first day back from mid-year break, Peter comes home from his history class to find Jaquie sprawled on the brown couch, scrolling listlessly through her phone. Balthazar is on the red couch, noodling at his guitar in a way that Peter has come to associate with nerves.

“Hey, guys,” Peter says, kicking off his shoes. “How long have you been hanging out here?”

“Balthazar let me in half an hour ago,” Jaquie says. “I thought your class let out at three.”

“I had to stop by the library.” Peter waves the European history book he’d checked out in the air. “I’d have put it off, if I’d known you were coming over.”

“I wasn’t planning on it, but…” Jaquie chucks a packet of paper at Peter. It thumps off his chest, and he throws his arms around it to stop it from sliding to the ground. “Costa finally let me see the play he’s been writing. You should read it.”

“You came over for an emergency play reading?”

Jaquie raises her eyebrows and nods at the script in Peter’s arms. He holds it out in front of him and reads the title: _Love’s Labour’s Lost_. Peter flips the words around in his head, and realizes what this must be.

“Oh, God.”

“Uh huh.”

“Is it bad?”

“You get me pregnant.”

The ambient guitar music stops. Balthazar’s hands have been shocked still. “ _What?_ ”

Peter spins the script around to show him the title. “Costa’s written a play about us.” He turns to Jaquie. “You didn’t tell him?”

“He was playing music.” Jaquie shrugs. “I didn’t want to interrupt.”

But it appears that Balthazar has been irrevocably interrupted. He sets his guitar aside, turns to face Jaquie and Peter, and says, “Costa wrote a _play_ about us, and you guys get _pregnant_?”

“That’s not even the worst part,” Jaquie says. “You should really read it.”

Peter throws himself on the couch next to Balthazar, running his thumb along the edges of the script like it’s a flip book. It’s not so long; he should be able to finish it in a couple hours.

Or he would, if Jaquie and Balthazar weren’t both sitting there, watching him read. Peter barely makes it through the suspiciously familiar character list before he starts to feel like he’s a zoo animal. “Could you guys, like, busy yourselves with something?”

Jaquie rolls her eyes, but turns back to her phone. Balthazar picks his guitar back up and starts strumming. He still sounds stressed. Why is he stressed? Is it because of the play? No, Balthazar had been uncomfortable when Peter got home, before he’d heard about the play, when he’d just been sitting around with…

Ah. It’s Jaquie. Peter’s hand clenches around the script, and he loosens it before he crinkles the paper too badly. Balthazar has sworn up and down that he doesn’t have a problem with Jaquie, and Peter believes him, but Balth still isn’t entirely comfortable around her, either. Peter’s starting to think it doesn’t even have much to do with the time that he announced in the middle of a sword fight that he and Jaquie had slept together. (Oh, god. Peter hopes that’s not in the play.) Maybe, Balthazar just finds Jaquie intimidating. What they really need is something to bond over. Something to do together, so that Peter can read in peace, without being stared at or stewing in a sea of tension. Some common interest.

“Hey, Balth,” Peter says. “You still haven’t seen _Angel_ , have you?”

Balthazar stops playing and fixes Peter with a glare. “I told you. I don’t download Joss Whedon’s work. Would Costa torrent one of his Elizabethan plays? Although, I guess you could do both at once. Whedon did that black-and-white version of _Every Man in His Humour_ after _The Avengers_ , and I heard it was great. But no. I’ll wait to get the DVD.”

“Balthazar,” Peter says, jumping in when Balth pauses to breathe. “Jaquie owns all of _Angel_ on Amazon.”

All of Balthazar’s attention shifts instantly and visibly to Jaquie. “You _do_?”

“She’s a huge fan,” Peter says.

“You _are_?”

Jaquie nods, sweeping a finger across the screen of her phone. “I love _Angel_. It’s the most ridiculous show I’ve ever seen.”

Balthazar doesn’t seem to quite know how to respond to that, so Peter steps in. “It can’t possibly be as ridiculous as this play.”

“Nothing’s as ridiculous as that play.”

“Well, I’m going to be reading this for the next few hours, so why don’t you guys take advantage of that time and watch _Angel_? Does that sound good?”

“I mean, Jaquie, if you’re okay with it…” Balthazar says. Peter suppresses a laugh; Balth is practically making grabby hands.

“I’m more than okay with it.” Jaquie turns to Peter. “Your computer’s in your room?”

“On the desk.”

Jaquie tosses her phone on the cushion beside her and vaults over the back of the couch, mussing Peter’s hair on her way up. Peter scowls, but it turns into a smile when Balthazar reaches over and straightens his hair for him.

“Hey,” Peter says, wrapping an arm around Balthazar’s shoulder. “I love you.”

“I suppose this is where you expect me to say, ‘I love you too.’”

“I mean, I _did_ just get you access to all four seasons of _Angel_.”

“There are five seasons of _Angel_. And what I’m hearing is that you know someone who owns all of _Angel_ , and you’ve been withholding that information for months.”

“Oh god,” Peter says. “I’ve failed you. Worst boyfriend ever.”

“No, no. Angel is the worst boyfriend ever. You’re just a close second.”

“Yeah, I still don’t understand your _Buffy_ references.”

“Oh my god.” Balthazar pulls Peter down and kisses him. “I love you too,” he whispers.

“Gross,” Jaquie says, flopping down on the brown couch with Peter’s laptop.

Peter laughs and gently pushes Balthazar away. “Go. Make your dreams come true.”

Balthazar’s eyes light up, and he gives a rare, goofy grin — Peter’s favorite, and one he doesn’t see nearly often enough. “Baby,” Balthazar says, “ _you’re_ my dream come true.”

Jaquie retches. Peter squeezes Balthazar’s hand as he gets up watch his ridiculous show, and then settles down to read Costa’s ridiculous play.

 

#

 

Balthazar and Jaquie are halfway through the third episode of _Angel_ — it has Oz in it, much to Balthazar’s delight — when Peter’s voice cuts through the sound of Cordelia’s.

“COSTA!”

Jaquie pauses the episode. “Finished?”

But Peter’s already on his phone. Balthazar can hear the other end ringing, and then the muffled sound of Costa’s faintly melodic voice, when he answers. He can just make out Costa’s end of the conversation.

“Peter!” Costa says. “It’s good to hear from you. I was just going—”

“Jaquie showed me your play,” Peter says.

“What did you think?” Costa’s voice, from what Balthazar can hear, is brimming with excitement.

“Well, I think you should have asked us before you wrote a play about us—”

“It’s not _about_ you, it’s inspired by your—”

Peter ignores him. “But mostly, I think you have to change the ending.”

Balthazar raises an eyebrow at Jaquie. She shakes her head. “It’s a long story,” she whispers. “And I think you’re about to hear all about it.”

“Now, Peter, I think you’ll find that the ending is—”

But Peter doesn’t seem interested in hearing what the ending is. He leaps to his feet, pacing from one end of the room to the other. “It’s not okay. You have to change it.”

The front door creaks open, and Balthazar looks over to see Hero entering the flat. She’s dressed in her running clothes, her face flushed, her earbuds dangling from one hand. She looks curious and wary; Peter’s been speaking so loudly, Hero must have been able to hear him from outside.

Peter is in such a state, he doesn’t seem to notice the new arrival.  “This is someone’s life you’re writing about. You can’t just…”

“Peter!” Jaquie says, with a kind of force Balthazar’s never heard from her. It draws every head in the room in her direction. She nods pointedly at Hero, and Peter finally notices her standing in the doorway.

“What’s all the fuss about?”

Jaquie and Peter look at each other, and it’s only then that Balthazar realizes that whatever’s going on, it has something to do with Hero. Peter opens his mouth, but Jaquie cuts him off before he can make a sound.

“Costa’s written a play,” she says. “Kind of based on Ben’s vlogs, but in the Elizabethan era. And one of the characters is the Princess of France, and at the end of the play, a messenger shows up out of nowhere to tell her that her father’s died.”

It takes a moment for Balthazar to make the connection, but it’s a fast enough moment that he has time to see, horribly, the same realization descend upon Hero. Her face is brutal and then blank, in quick succession. She paces to Peter and holds out her hand.

“Give me the script,” she says.

Peter hands it to her without hesitation. “I understand if you want to destroy it, but I doubt it’s the only copy, so…”

“I’m not going to destroy it,” Hero says. “I’m going to read it.”

She’s past him, in her room with the door shut, before Peter manages to pick his jaw up off the floor.

“What’s going on?” Costa says, from the other end of the phone line.

Balthazar blinks; he’d forgotten Peter was still on the phone. Judging by Peter’s stunned expression, so had he. Jaquie, however, is unperturbed; she stands, plucks the phone from Peter’s loose grip, and holds it to her own ear.

“Hero’s reading your script,” she says. “Good luck.”

And she hangs up.

“She really shouldn’t…” Peter starts, but Jaquie holds a finger to his lips.

“She’ll be fine.” Jaquie looks at Balthazar. “Right?”

A second goes by in silence before it occurs to Balthazar that he’s the one she’s asking. “Oh. Um, yeah, I’m sure she will be. I mean, I have no idea why she’d want to read that, but it’s kind of her choice, so…”

“Yeah,” Peter says, hooking his fingers in his hair. “Yeah, you’re right.” He blows out a breath and lets his hand drop to his side. “I’m gonna go on a grocery run, I think.”

“You want help?” Balthazar asks, halfway out of his seat already.

Peter waves him off. “Nah, you guys stay here and watch your ridiculous show. I’ll just make a quick trip. Stock up on the basics. Anything you want?”

“Can you pick up some of that muesli we had last time? Or not last time, but like three weeks ago? The one I liked.”

Balthazar does not particularly want the muesli — the kind they currently have is just fine — but he knows that Peter’s not actually going on this trip because they need groceries. He’s going because wants to help Hero, but there’s nothing he can do for Hero right now. So Balthazar is giving him something else to help with.

“Got it,” Peter says. “See you in a bit.”

As the door slams behind Peter, Jaquie catches Balthazar’s gaze and rolls her eyes. She knows exactly what caused Peter’s sudden urge to grocery shop, Balthazar realizes. And she probably knows that he’s not craving muesli, either.

Whedon fandom aside, it’s the first time that Balthazar has ever felt like he and Jaquie have something in common.

“Come on,” Jaquie says, dropping back onto the couch beside him. “Let’s finish the episode.”

They end up watching the rest of the Oz episode and two more while Hero reads the script. Freddie and Kit get home in the middle of episode four, and Peter returns from shopping during episode five. Peter’s cooking dinner — it’s not his night, but nobody’s going to stop him — when Hero emerges from her room.

She doesn’t look shredded, which is how Balthazar imagines he would be in her place. In fact, she’s positively put-together. She’s changed out of her running clothes and brushed her hair, and her expression is perfectly calm.

“Is Peter around?” she asks.

“Right here,” Peter says, popping out of the kitchen.

Hero hands him the script. “Please tell Costa that it’s very good, and as far as I’m concerned, the ending is perfect.”

Peter stares at her like she’s speaking in tongues, and Balthazar can’t say he blames him. “What do you mean, it’s _perfect_?”

“It’s just a play, Pedro. Those characters, they’re not us, and that ending has nothing to do with Leo. Obviously, Costa took a lot of, um, _inspiration_ from real life, but that play is fiction. I mean, it ends with Bea and _Freddie_ in love, for god’s sake. It’s a story, Pedro. And it has the ending it needs.”

She slides past an unresponsive Peter and into the kitchen, returning a few moments later with a stack of plates. As she starts setting the table, she says, “Oh, and tell Costa that I look forward to auditioning, after he’s cleared it with everyone _else_ who provided inspiration.”

Balthazar looks from Hero, calmly setting down plates, to Peter, still standing by the kitchen door with the script dangling from his hand, to Jaquie, who gives him a smirk.

Well, damn. Now Balthazar _has_ to read that play.

 

**August**

August brings two gifts from abroad. The first arrives in the usual manner: Delivered to the flat in a bubble envelope, blank but for the address and a Madrid postmark. Peter’s the one who finds it in the mailbox, and in accordance with custom, he waits for the rest of the flat to get home before he opens it, but for once, there’s no mystery; the envelope may be blank, but the weight and shape of a book are unmistakeable.

The thick paperback that Peter pulls out of the envelope, when everyone else has arrived, boasts the title _Rebeldes_ in dramatic script over an image of a Roman centurion. The author, to no one’s surprise, is Pedro Santamaria. A quick conference reveals that Kit is the only one among them who knows any Spanish, so Peter hands the book off to him for further examination.

“I’m kind of disappointed,” Peter says, while Kit squints at the blurb on the back cover. “They’re in Spain. You’d think he could do better than a book by a guy named Pedro.”

“Uh, Peter?” Kit holds out the book, which he’s opened to the title page. Below the title, there’s handwriting:

_Para Pedro, qué siempre sería Pedro._

_—Pedro Santamaria_.

Hero is the first one to calm down from making fun of Peter, so she’s the one who asks, “What does it mean?”

Kit laughs. “Basically? ‘For Pedro. May he always be Pedro.’”

The second gift from abroad is an actual gift. The box it arrives in has a return address, complete with the sender’s name (Beatrice Duke), and lists an intended recipient (Hero Duke). When Hero opens it — in front of the rest of the flat, because by now, it just feels right — it turns out to be full of Harry Potter memorabilia from Leavesden Studios: A Hufflepuff headband, Luna Lovegood’s wand, every kind of Wizarding candy currently available in the real world, and a leather-bound Hogwarts-crest-stamped journal that looked, frankly, too nice to write in.

Beatrice knew what she was doing. The gift arrives just in time for Hero’s birthday.

 

#

 

Freddie starts planning Hero’s birthday party before anyone has even checked that Hero _wants_ a birthday party. Balthazar wouldn’t be surprised if she’d been planning it since the moment Hero wrote her birthday down on the flat calendar in February; he’s pretty sure that Freddie has a mental to-do list stretching years into the future.

To be fair to Freddie, it’s not like she starts ordering decorations. One day early in August when everyone’s hanging around eating breakfast except for Hero, who has an early-morning lecture, Freddie just says, “Hey, Hero’s birthday is coming up. We should do something.”

Balthazar forces himself not to look at Peter. “I’ll ask her what she wants to do,” he says.

He approaches Hero that night, when Freddie and Kit have gone out for a date night and Peter is at work. Nights like this where it’s just him and Hero are rare, but they’re kind of nice. They make Balthazar feel like he’s back in high school, but in a good way. He and Hero used to hang out like this a decent amount, just fiddling around on the ukelele or watching TV.

Tonight, they make vegan macaroni and cheese (which takes a while, since Hero refuses to substitute mashed carrots for mashed potatoes in the sauce, and makes Balthazar run out and buy the actual ingredients), and then Balthazar quizzes Hero for her classics lecture, and then that devolves into a debate about the Pompeii episode of _Doctor Who_. Only after that does Balthazar bring up Hero’s birthday.

“Freddie was talking about maybe having a party for your birthday,” he says, watching Hero doodle one of the “Fires of Pompeii” lava monsters in the margin of her notebook. “I know you kept things pretty quiet last year, so I don’t know if you were planning on like, just going out to dinner, or if you want me to head her off…”

“No, a party sounds nice.” Hero adds a little fizzle of smoke to her lava monster. “Just, I saw the video from your party last year, and maybe a little… _smaller_ than that.”

Balthazar’s a little surprised by Hero’s answer, but when he thinks about it, it sort of makes sense. Hero’s been making an effort to get out of her room lately, and not just to go running. She has a regular dinner date with Meg, she’s started tagging along to open mics with Balth and Paige and Chelsey, and last week she and Mimi wemt to some post-something-or-other-ist exhibit at the City Gallery. And of course, she’s still planning to try out for Costa’s play next week. Balthazar doesn’t know if it has to do with Leo’s continued improvement, or if Hero has finally taken to heart Leo’s request that she try to enjoy her uni experience, but either way, he’s glad.

“All right. I guess we’re having a party, then.”

With Hero’s official go-ahead, things really take off. Within two days, there’s a date (August 13, so that Hero has time to Skype with her family on her actual birthday), a guest list (the flatmates, Meg, Vegan Fred, Paige, Chelsey, Jaquie, Rosa, Mimi, and a couple of other people from Hero’s lectures whom Balth has never met), and a rough menu (heavy on baked goods, at Hero’s insistence). Within three days, a small but contentious war has broken out between Freddie and Meg over who will be in charge of planning.

“That’s the menu set, then,” Freddie says, during one movie-night-turned-planning-session. Hero went to sleep right after the movie, since she has an early class the next day, but everyone else is still up and hanging around the front room.

“Uh, no it’s not,” Meg says.

Freddie leans forward, accidentally jostling Kit from where he’s been lying with his head on her lap. “We can’t just keep on going in circles about one thing. There’s other stuff to plan. The menu’s good.”

“There’s no cake,” Meg says, crossing her arms.

Freddie scoffs. “Who said anything about cake?”

“Hero’s going to want a cake.”

“It’s not a cake kind of party.”

“What the fuck is a ‘cake kind of party’?”

“I’m just saying, we’ve got sugar cookies and chocolate cookies and Vegan Fred’s horrible brownies, do we really need—”

“Oh, will you _shut up_ about the brownies already?”

At this, Peter — who has been watching the argument with something like glee — seems to sense real trouble in the air. He pulls his arm from around Balthazar’s shoulders and holds his hands up placatingly. “Guys. Let’s just ask Hero what she wants, okay?”

“She’s going to want a cake,” Meg says.

“Then we’ll add it to the list tomorrow, when she tells us that.”

Meg sits back with a huff. “Fine.”

The next day, Hero confirms that of _course_ she wants a cake, and there’s an interesting chocolate raspberry one that she’s been itching to try her hand at. Peter fairly twitches at the idea of Hero baking her own birthday cake, but that’s what Hero wants, so that’s what happens. Meg is satisfied at having been right, Freddie gets to move on from the menu, and Hero gets her birthday cake. A happy ending for all involved.

But it doesn’t just happen once. It happens over and over, for two straight weeks. Meg and Freddie don’t just fight about the cake; they fight about the music, the decorations, the time, who’s in charge of what, how much alcohol there should be. Every time, Peter steps in to mediate, and every time, Balthazar can see his nerves getting strung tighter. And Balthazar’s get stretched right along with them.

Balthazar knows why Peter’s so worked up about Hero’s birthday. It doesn’t take a mind reader to figure out. He’s just not sure what to do about it. He hovers on the edge of bringing it up with Peter for days, but what if that just makes things worse? There’s a reason that no one talks about Hero’s sixteenth birthday.

But by the night before the party, Peter’s wound like a spring, cracking his knuckles every five seconds, and Balthazar knows he has to say something.  He waits until they’ve gone to bed for the night, when the lights are out and the words come easier.

“You know Hero’s party is gonna be fine, right?”

Peter rolls over so they’re lying face to face. His hair is falling hopelessly over his eyes. “I know.”

“You seem kinda stressed about it. For like, a while, now.”

“I just want her to have a good birthday.”

“We all do.”

“I know, I just…” Peter shrugs, as well as anyone can shrug while they’re lying on their side.

Balthazar reaches up and brushes Peter’s hair out of his eyes. “I get it. I do. But it’s not like if Hero has a perfect birthday this year, it’s gonna magically cancel out year 13. It’s just a party.”

Peter’s shoulders are hunched around his ears. “I’m not trying to cancel anything out. I’m not… This isn’t like last year, okay? I’m not gonna freak out, I just want our friend to have a good birthday.”

Maybe bringing up year 13 was a mistake. “Okay,” Balthazar says. “I’m sure she will.”

 

#

 

Hero’s party turns out a little bigger and a little louder than she might have wanted, but the guests are enjoying themselves, Balthazar’s music selection is perfect, and there is a goddamn cake. It turns out Balthazar was right. For all of Meg and Freddie’s bickering, and for all that Peter has admittedly been stressing about things, it’s just a party — and a pretty good one.

So Peter takes a deep breath and lets himself enjoy the night. He wishes Hero a happy birthday, dances with Meg and Freddie, talks to Paige about a documentary that’s just come out about the history of LGBT rights in New Zealand, and then discovers, to his glee, that Balthazar and Jaquie have holed themselves up on the chest in the corner of the room, and are arguing about _Angel_.

“No, it’s about fate and free will,” Balthazar is saying when Peter wanders over. “Like, Wesley didn’t _have_ to take Connor. If he’d trusted Angel over the prophecy, everything would’ve been fine.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s about not trusting giant talking cheeseburgers,” Jaquie says.

“Is this a real show, or are you guys just making things up to see if I’ll believe you?” Peter says, sliding in next to Balthazar.

“Oh, look. It’s Angelus,” Jaquie says. Balthazar snickers.

“I do not know what you’re referencing, and I’m not going to ask.” Peter pulls Balthazar toward him and kisses his temple. Balthazar laughs and wipes the kiss off, and as much as Peter wants to scowl at him, his lips pull involuntarily into a smile. “I’m gonna get another drink,” Peter says. “Either of you want anything?”

Jaquie and Balthazar both beg off, so Peter gets up to get his second and final drink of the night. That’s part of the agreement he and Balthazar worked out back in June — Peter drinks whatever he wants to when he’s out with Jaquie or Freddie or Meg, but when Balthazar’s around, he limits himself to two a night. Balthazar had protested, but Peter doesn’t find the restriction particularly burdensome. He doesn’t _need_ to drink to have fun or to be happy. Not anymore.

On his way to the kitchen, Peter passes Mimi and Freddie arguing about Jane Austen, Paige and Chelsey dancing exuberantly, and Meg flirting with some guy from Hero’s art class. Kit, Rosa, and Vegan Fred have set up shop in the kitchen, where they’re talking about European cities. It’s only when Peter’s made his drink and is on his way back into the front room that he realizes who’s missing: Hero.

“Hey, have you guys seen Hero?” he asks the European travelers.

Kit, Rosa, and Vegan Fred look at each other and shrug. “I talked to her maybe twenty minutes ago?” Kit says. “Why, is it time for the cake?”

“Something like that,” Peter says. He thinks for a moment. She’s not in the front room, she’s not in the kitchen, so unless she slipped into her room when no one was looking, there’s only one other place she’s likely to be.

He pushes open the kitchen door and steps outside. Sure enough, there’s Hero, sitting on the stairs to nowhere. She’s bent over, elbows on her knees and head in her hands.

“Hero?”

Hero looks up, and Peter can see, even in the dim light, that she’s crying. “Hey, are you okay?” he says. “What happened?”

“It’s nothing.” Hero wipes at her eyes. “I’m fine, nothing...” She chokes on a sob. “Nothing happened.”

This scene is unsettlingly familiar, but Peter pushes that thought as far down as he can. It’s not helpful. He approaches Hero cautiously and rests a hand on her shoulder. “Do you want to talk?”

Hero shakes her head, but after a second, it turns into a nod. Peter sits down next to her, looking from Hero’s profile to his shoes and back again. He wishes Bea were here.

“I just…” Hero laughs. “I mean, it’s Leo, obviously.”

Alarms go off in Peter’s head. “Did something happen?”

“No, no, it’s nothing like that. He’s fine. I mean, he’s as fine as he was yesterday. He’s doing really, really well, all things considered. It’s just that I was… I was in there, and I was trying to have a good time, because it’s _such_ a lovely party. But I just can’t stop thinking about Leo, and about what if next year…”

“Leo’s gonna be fine,” Peter says. “You said it yourself, he’s doing well. He’s gonna be here for your next birthday.”

Hero shakes her head. “You don’t know that. I know I say that, but you don’t _know_.”

“No. No, I guess I don’t.”

Hero’s face, which has been gradually coming to something like composure, crumples. “I don’t want him to die,” she says.

She turns to Peter and buries her head in his shoulder, crying onto his button-down shirt. Peter puts an arm around her and gently rubs her back. It’s all he can think of to do.

They sit like that for several minutes. In the silence, Peter’s mind wanders to a summer afternoon, nearly a decade past, when the Dukes and the Donaldsons had all gone for a picnic together. Bea hadn’t arrived from Wellington yet, and Leo’d been at uni, so it had just been Peter and Hero, playing on their own while the adults talked politics. Hero had taken a massive spill off of a boulder they’d been climbing, and twisted her ankle on the way down. Peter had sat with her almost exactly like this, and it had only taken a minute for her to calm down enough for him to run and get her mums.

He wishes more than anything that this could clear up as easily as a twisted ankle.

Eventually, Hero’s tears run out, and she sits up. “Oh, I’ve mussed up your shirt,” she says.

Peter rolls his eyes, then immediately feels bad. “I really don’t think we need to worry about my shirt. Are you okay?”

“I’m feeling better, now. Thank you.”

“Do you want me to get you some water?”

“No, that’s okay. I should go back inside.”

“You don’t have to, if you don’t want to.”

“No, you guys all worked so hard. And it really is a wonderful party.”

“It’s _your_ party. If you want to spend it outside, you should.” Hero looks like she’s actually considering it, so Peter continues — perhaps unwisely. “Fuck parties, honestly.”

Hero laughs, a real, unself-conscious laugh. “I want to try my cake, though.” She dries her eyes and looks at Peter. “Can you tell I’ve been crying?”

Her eyeliner is a little smudged, but there’s surprisingly little red around her eyes. “I think you’re good. Just… here.” He reaches out and rubs away the errant makeup.

“Oh, is my makeup all messed up?”

“Nah, it’s okay. But here, you can make sure.” Peter pulls his eyeliner from where he’d luckily pocketed it earlier in the evening and hands it to Hero. After a moment’s thought, he pulls out his phone and hands it to her as well. Hero turns the camera on to selfie mode and quickly reapplies her makeup.

“Thanks.” Hero hands the eyeliner and phone back to Peter, then stands and brushes off her skirt. “Come on, then.”

“Hey, Hero,” Peter says, as they approach the door. “You know if you want to talk, I’m always around. Even if it’s in the middle of a party.”

“I know.” She reaches out and brushes his arm. “Thank you, Pedro.”

They walk back inside to rejoin the party.

 

**September**

In September, the flat receives its very first illegal gift from abroad. It arrives in a small cardboard box, postmarked from Istanbul. When Peter cuts it open, he discovers a great deal of Turkish newsprint cushioning a simple shot glass. The glass has no words or pictures, no identifying marks at all. Peter holds it up like it’s the Holy Grail, but although the light passing through it makes very pretty patterns on the floor, it does not spell out the word “Pedro.”

“Looks like it’s another one for Google,” Kit says, his phone already out.

“We could probably predict these things ahead of time,” Freddie says. “I mean, we know where they are. All we’d have to do is google ‘pedro istanbul’ _before_ we get the package, instead of after.”

“That wouldn’t be very sporting,” Peter says.

“Who cares if it’s sporting?”

“It’s a restaurant and bar,” Kit says, flashing his phone at the rest of the group.

Peter squints at the glass. “A restaurant probably wouldn’t just _sell_ them a shot glass, would they?”

“I can’t imagine they would,” Kit says.

“I can’t believe it,” Peter says. “They’ve sent us a stolen shot glass. They’ve made us an accessory!”

“Why didn’t they just send a receipt?” Balthazar asks. “Like they did in London?”

“Ben probably thought that each gift should be different,” Hero says. “So he had to, you know. Up the ante, this time.”

Peter shakes his head. “Freddie’s right. Screw sporting. Let’s google ahead for the next one.”

 

#

 

“Hey, we’re gonna have to postpone tonight,” Balthazar says. He tosses his phone on the desk and starts rummaging through his drawers for a shirt to change into. “Cory needs me to switch shifts.”

Peter, who’s been using the bed as a desk to study, shuts his politics book and dumps it beside him. “Oh, come _on_.”

“He’s got an exam tomorrow.”

“He’s asked you for three last-minute switches this month. He needs to learn to manage his own schedule.”

There’s the shirt he’s looking for. Balthazar pulls it from his drawer and starts changing. “I’m just trying to be a good coworker.”

“Balth, we haven’t had a date night in forever. Just tell him no.”

Balthazar fiddles with the buttons on his shirt, considering. He does want to go to the concert — he’s been looking forward to it. And it _has_ been a while since he and Peter have had a night out, just the two of them. And to be honest, Cory’s constant shift-swapping is incredibly annoying. But the thought of calling Cory back and telling him he won’t do it makes him queasy. Cory would get upset, probably, especially since Balthazar _just_ agreed, and then everything at work would be tense and unbearable.

“I already said yes,” Balthazar says. “I can’t back out now.”

“You absolutely can. Call him and say you have a date.”

“I’m not gonna do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not gonna just call him and take it back. I’m just not going to do that.”

Peter sits up straight, reaching for his own phone. “Do you want me to call for you?”

“ _No_ ,” Balthazar says. “Why would I want that?”

“Well, it obviously makes you uncomfortable, but I don’t care about pissing Cory off.”

“Oh, yeah, now I _really_ want you calling him, I’m sure that’ll turn out great. And besides, I’m not having you call off work for me like you’re my mum.”

“Then do it yourself, so I don’t have to,” Peter says. His voice is taking on that edge that Balthazar hates, the one that says he’s priming for a fight. Balthazar doesn’t want a fight, and he doesn’t have time for a fight, and he’s honestly a little annoyed that a fight is even on the table. Weren’t they supposed to be _done_ with fighting? Wasn’t that why he’d set up his stupid study schedule, and Peter had rearranged his drinking?

He knows it’s not realistic to think that they’ll never have a fight. He knows that. But he can at least put off this one.

“You don’t have to do anything, Pete.” Balthazar grabs his keys and phone off the desk. “I’m late for work.”

And he leaves the room.

 

#

 

Peter _should_ study, while Balthazar is at work. Or he should hang out with Freddie and Kit, while they make dinner. Or he should work on memorizing his lines for Costa’s play. But he’s too worked up to focus on his politics books, and he’s too annoyed to interact with people, and reading the play just makes him think of Balthazar.

So instead, he rereads _Tokyo Babylon_ with half his brain, while the other half quietly stews. It’s not a great solution, because by the time Balthazar gets home at 11:30, Peter is more worked up and more annoyed than he was when Balth left. Which means that the first thing he says when Balthazar steps through the bedroom door isn’t “Hi,” or “How was work?” It’s, “How was Cory’s shift?”

Balthazar pauses with his hand still on the door knob. “Can we not do this?”

“Not do what?”

“I really don’t want to fight right now.”

“Well, I do.” Peter tosses his book aside and stands up. “I’m sick of you putting everything on hold whenever someone asks for a favor.”

“We can reschedule the date,” Balthazar says, pulling his wallet and phone from his pocket and dropping them on the desk.

“Why bother? You’ll probably just cancel again when Cory gets a hangnail.”

Balthazar closes his eyes and takes a deep breath through his nose. “That’s it. I’m sleeping on the couch.” He slips past Peter and plucks his pillow and the spare blanket from the bed.

“What? Why?”

“Because I’m tired, and you refuse to let this go.”

“So you’re just gonna walk out?”

Balthazar rubs his eyes. “I just… need some space. Just for tonight.”

He turns and walks out the door. Peter follows him.

“Fine then,” Peter says. “I’ll sleep on the couch.”

Peter’s not sure why, but somehow this feels very important. He doesn’t want to spend the night apart from Balthazar — in fact, underneath his still-very-present annoyance, this whole thing is freaking him out — but if Balthazar insists, Peter doesn’t want to be the one in the room alone.

Balthazar pauses in the middle of laying out the blanket on the couch. “What are you talking about?”

“You sleep in the room, I’ll sleep on the couch. Don’t let me drive you out of your own room.”

“It’s _our room_ , Pete.” It’s the closest Balthazar has come to yelling all night, and Peter is briefly suspended between fear and exhilaration. On the one hand, Balthazar rarely gets angry, and if he starts yelling when he’s already in a “sleep on the couch” mood, who knows what could happen? On the other hand, Peter is ready to _have this fight_ , already.

In the end, it doesn’t matter. Balthazar just sighs and turns back to laying out the blanket. “Just go to bed,” he says.

Peter whirls around and stomps back into their room, letting the door slam behind him. He puts on his pajamas and gets in bed, but it takes him ages — 100 pages of _Tokyo Babylon_ and three episodes of _New Girl_ — to actually fall asleep. And when he does, he sleeps fitfully. It’s not so much the fact that Balthazar’s not there that bothers him as it is the fact that Balthazar is five meters away.

In the early hours of the morning, right around the time when the sky is starting to consider maybe lightening up a bit, Peter wakes to the sound of the bedroom door creaking open, and a Balthazar-sized weight beside him.

Balthazar wraps an arm around Peter’s chest and whispers into his ear. “I’m sorry I canceled our date. I’ll… I dunno, I’ll talk to you next time.”

Peter’s half-asleep and fully over his annoyance. “Sorry I yelled,” he mumbles. A few moments later, the feeling of Balthazar rubbing a thumb over his knuckles soothes him back to sleep.

When they wake up the next morning, it’s like the fight never happened.

 

**October**

As planned, the flat googles ahead to try to figure out what the October gift will be.

“It’s Singapore next,” Hero says, when she gets off Skype with Bea in late September.

Freddie is on her phone before Hero’s done talking. “All I can find is this shoe store.”

“That’s what I’m getting too,” Peter says, scrolling through search results on his own phone. “But there’s no way this will be it. This is like, legitimately nice stuff. Not like the crap he normally sends.” He points at the not inconsiderable price listed next to a pair of loafers.

“Hey, that book was pretty good,” Kit says.

“I’ll take your word for it,” Peter says. “I mean literally, I have to take your word for it, I couldn’t read it.”

“Maybe they’ll pick up a catalogue,” Balthazar says. “Or like, Ben’ll con them out of a shoebox, however Ben manages to do things like that.”

There follows some lively discussion about the specifics of what Ben might do to get a shoebox, but they all agree that Balthazar has the right general idea. So they’re all surprised — more surprised, probably, than they would have been if they’d never googled at all — when the next gift from abroad turns out to be, not a shoebox or a catalogue, but a slim bracelet woven from warm brown leather. The sleek metal clasp is inscribed with the name of the company that made it: Pedro.

“Ben’s a shoplifter now,” Freddie says. “The shot glass was a gateway theft!”

Peter waves the gift receipt in the air. “Nah, he bought it fair and square. That bastard.”

“Why are we calling Ben a bastard for this?” Kit asks, furrowing his brow.

“It’s a _nice gift_ ,” Peter says. “That means I’ve gotta be polite. I’ve gotta wear it.”

Balthazar shakes his head sadly. “He’s a criminal mastermind.”

 

#

 

Balthazar would never want to be _in_ one of Costa’s plays, but the rehearsals sure are fun to watch. He’s been granted permission to sit in because he agreed to help Paige with the music for the show, and ten minutes into the first one, that agreement is already paying off.

“So there’s a character named _Moth_ , who’s a _page_ , but I’m not playing him?” Paige says, flipping through her copy of the script. (Peter had quietly photocopied Costa’s, or they all would’ve been working off the original.)

“I just don’t think you’re a Moth _type_ ,” Costa says.

“Wait, there’s a mistake,” Mimi says. This is her first real taste of Costa — other than her audition, which Hero guided her through — and Balthazar can see that she still believes there might be some kind of method lurking beneath the madness. “I thought Chelsey was playing both Costard and the Princess of France?”

“Yes, that’s right,” Costa says.

“But they’re in scenes together.” She points at her script. “There’s this whole long conversation just between them.”

“Yes, I thought Chelsey could sort of jump around the stage. You know—” Costa leaps balletically to one side. “Here, I’m the Princess, fair and strong-willed leader of a dying land—” He leaps back. “Here, I’m the wise but misunderstood Costard.”

Chelsey hops back and forth like a skier on a slalom, apparently practicing for her big moment.

“But why don’t _you_ just play Costard?” Mimi says.

“Because I’m Don Armado, and Don Armado _duels_ Costard! You can’t duel yourself. That’s just ridiculous.”

Mimi falls back, her mouth opening and closing soundlessly, seemingly at a loss for words. Just as Balthazar is starting to think (with, to be honest, a lot of disappointment) that things are going to get back on track, Kel takes advantage of the silence to speak for the first time.

“Can I just say,” he says, stepping dramatically forward, “that I really think that the forester should have more lines? You know, really be fleshed out, as a character.”

“You don’t even _play_ the forester,” Jaquie says.

“I know, I just feel like he should be a more central character. There’s a story there, I can tell.”

Balthazar sticks his hand in his pocket and runs his fingers around the edges of his phone. He’s so tempted to try to turn on the voice recorder, at least. Costa isn’t making production diaries this year, and this demands to be recorded for posterity. Kit would lose his mind, laughing.

But no. It’s not worth the risk. If Costa catches him, he’ll kick him out, and Balthazar refuses to miss a single second of this nonsense.

“I’m still stuck on who Peter’s supposed to be,” Paige says.

“He’s Berowne. And…” Chelsey glances at her script. “And Nathaniel.”

“No, I know who he plays, but who is he supposed to _be_? Berowne or Don Armado?”

Peter looks at Hero for the briefest of moments, then steps forward. “I’m not anyone. They’re just characters who happen to have similar names to us. That’s why you’re not playing Moth, and Kel’s not the forester, and Costa’s not Costard.”

“Excellently put, Peter!” Costa claps him on the shoulder.

“Thanks,” Peter says, with a short humoring nod at Costa. “So… let’s rehearse.”

There’s a certain amount of grumbling (Balthazar distinctly hears Jaquie say, “That doesn’t explain why the kingdom is named after our _bar_ ”), but Peter stares the troublemakers down until they fall into line, quieting long enough for Costa to explain some sort of complicated acting warm-up involving people imitating each other’s gait.

For a second, Balthazar’s love burns a little brighter, like an ember blown into flame by breath. There’s something mesmerizing about the way Peter holds a room. It’s like he throws a switch, and suddenly he’s more _there_ than everyone around him. Balthazar knows he’s not the only one who sees it. It’s why Costa’s so keen to cast him in plays; it’s what made Leo pick him as team captain and their classmates pick him as student leader; it’s why everyone’s listening to him now. But Balthazar’s pretty sure that he’s the only one who burns when the switch is flipped.

Eventually, Peter returns to being the normal amount of there, and the ember fades to its usual steady glow, freeing Balthazar to think about other things. He files away the ember/lightswitch metaphor for a possible future song, and contemplates getting Peter to talk Costa into doing production diaries. Peter could convince him, he knows it, and Balthazar _needs_ a record of these rehearsals.

 

#

 

Paige and Balthazar have been bent over a guitar in the corner of the practice room for the last half hour, alternating between playing snippets of song and quietly discussing harmonies or crescendos or treble basses, or whatever it is musicians talk about. They’re in a “playing” stretch when Peter wanders over, and he waits for Balthazar to finish out the chord progression before he speaks.

“Hey, music director,” he says, nodding at Paige. “I need you to come be Dull for a little while. Mimi and I are blocking the deer scene.”

“The one with the Latin?”

“There are two with Latin. This is the one with _less_ Latin.”

Paige glances an apology to Balthazar and follows Peter across the room. “I bet you thought you were done with Latin after _Faustus_ ,” she says.

“This is all Ben’s fault,” Peter says.

“ _How_?”

“He was always going on about his Latin flashcards last year. I think Costa took it and ran with it.” He nods at Mimi as they reach her. “Honestly, who studies _Latin_?”

“ _Discipula linguae Latinae sum_ ,” Mimi says.

Peter groans and drops his head into his hands.

“It means—”

“I’ve got the idea, yeah.”

“Soooo,” Paige says. “Blocking?”

“Right. Well, this scene is all puns, right? I mean, it’s not like there’s a lot of action. So I was thinking…”

Peter trails off. Balthazar has started playing again. It’s the song he wrote Christmas before last, the one with all the _cuckoos_ in it, and it sets off a quiet storm of conflicting emotions within Peter. He must have heard Balthazar play that song 20 times in a row while he was learning the lyrics for their video. In retrospect, he’s not sure how he managed to do that without kissing Balthazar breathless. That’s sure what he wants to do right _now_.

“Peter.” Paige waves a hand in front of his face. “Are we blocking, or are we staring at Balthazar?”

“Right! Sorry.”

But Paige doesn’t seem put out. She’s got an indulgent kind of smirk on her face. “You really do like his music, don’t you?”

“Well, he’s _good_.” Paige is still looking at him with that smirk, and although Peter knows it’s ridiculous, he feels himself getting defensive. “He plays like 15 instruments! Honestly, just thinking about how much work he had to put in to learn to play like that… It’s impressive.”

He can feel himself losing control of his words, so he shuts up before he can embarrass himself too badly.

“Aw, you’re sweet,” Mimi says. She’s switched seamlessly into “hopeless romantic” mode while Peter’s been distracted.

“He’s disrupting the rehearsal environment, is what he is,” Paige says, blunting the edge of her words with a smile. “Come on, tell me this blocking you two’ve come up with.”

“Maybe it’ll actually survive Costa, this time,” Mimi says.

Mercifully, Balthazar stops playing, allowing Peter space to pull himself together. “I wouldn’t count on it,” he says. “But let’s give it a go, anyway.”

 

**November**

In November, the flat’s “google ahead” strategy fails them completely.

“All I’m getting is a restaurant and a jewelry store,” Freddie says, showing around the results for “pedro johannesburg.”

“They wouldn’t do a third restaurant,” Hero says.

“But if there are no other options…” Balthazar says.

“What about the jewelry store?” Kit says.

“A bracelet’s one thing, but they’re not going to buy me actual jewelry,” Peter says. He pauses. “Are they?”

The flat debates the matter for the next two weeks, mulling it over in spare moments — while they wait for the bus, or to distract themselves from their studying. By the time gift arrives, they’re all more than ready to see what’s inside the box.

It turns out to contain a one-liter bottle of something called Amarula Cream.

“What is it?” Hero asks.

“I dunno, but it’s alcoholic,” Peter says, pointing to the label.

“Is it from the restaurant, d’you think?” Balthazar says.

“This is stupid,” Freddie says. “We’re just giving him what he wants by ogling over it.”

She googles “pedro amarula,” and a second later, they have their answer. “It’s an ingredient in a drink,” she says, “that’s popular in South Africa. A Don Pedro.”

Balthazar snorts. At Peter’s glare, he says, “Sorry, I’m just imagining you as Don Pedro, brooding Italian royal.”

Peter scowls and takes the phone from Freddie. He scans the list of ingredients. “This isn’t a drink, this is a vaguely alcoholic milkshake.”

“You can always spike it,” Kit says. “You’re in charge. After all, you _are_ Italian royalty, Don Pedro.”

 

#

 

The fight is Peter’s fault. Well, of course it is.

It actually starts two days _before_ the fight, when Balthazar once again takes one of Cory’s shifts at the last minute. He doesn’t have to cancel a date night for it — he insists, when Peter registers his annoyance — but it does throw off his exams study schedule, meaning he has to study the next night, while the rest of the flat is taking a rest day as planned.

Which means that between studying, work, and a rash of final, no-musicians-allowed play rehearsals, Peter barely sees his boyfriend for a week. Peter and Balthazar’s busy schedules were a surmountable hassle, when there was nothing they could do about them, but when Balthazar takes on work he doesn’t have to — well, that’s a different story. But when Peter tries to bring up the subject, there’s always somewhere that he or Balthazar has to be, or there’s studying that shouldn’t be distracted from, or the conversation somehow gets derailed.

So instead, Peter simmers for a week. And when he and Balthazar do finally get a night off at the same time, they spend it at Vegan Fred’s, celebrating the expansion of Boyet’s into Palmerston North. Peter can’t really complain about this, since he agreed to go to the party a month ago, but he does anyway.

“We could just skip,” he says, while he’s half-heartedly combing his hair. “There’s a whole city full of non-vegan food, just waiting for us.”

“Fred’s a great cook, though,” Balthazar says, peering around Peter to adjust his own hair in the mirror.

“So everyone keeps saying.”

Peter knows he’s pushing it. He sees annoyance flash across Balth’s face, but Balthazar just purses his lips and lets it go.

And so does Peter. For the moment.

But he just can’t stop himself. Even after they get to the party, he keeps making comments, about the food mostly, but also about the house, the music, the decor — things that make Freddie laugh, Meg and Rosa roll their eyes, and Balthazar’s face draw tighter and tighter.

Peter manages to avoid talking to Vegan Fred for two hours, which is why it takes two hours for things to blow up. Eventually, though, he finds himself alone in the kitchen with Vegan Fred and Balthazar, as Vegan Fred drones on about Boyet’s new charity partnerships. Apparently, Boyet’s catered a fundraising gala for a conservationist organization just last week.

“We actually debuted that vegan pizza you like so much,” Vegan Fred says to Balthazar. “It’ll be on the cafe menus starting next month.”

“It’s not really pizza if it’s _vegan_ , though,” Peter says. He’s been silent for this whole conversation, but for some reason, the pizza is the last straw. “I mean, there are only three ingredients to pizza, and one of them is cheese. You can’t have a pizza if you’re missing a third of the ingredients.”

Vegan Fred smiles pleasantly. “We use vegan cheese.”

Peter’s hand itches for an egg.

“Sorry about my boyfriend,” Balthazar says.

“Don’t apologize for me!” Peter means for it to come out playfully offended, but as the words leave his mouth, he realizes there’s nothing playful about them.

Vegan Fred looks between them awkwardly. “I’m going to… go out there, now,” he says, as he edges his way out of the kitchen. And then, for the first time in days, it’s just Peter and Balthazar.

“It was only a joke,” Balthazar says. “I’m sorry.”

“It wasn’t a joke. You were apologizing for me!”

“Yeah, well.” Balthazar shrugs. “You were being…”

“I was being what?” Peter says, though he knows perfectly well what he was being.

“I don’t really want to talk about this here.”

“Do you not want me around?”

“Not when you’re being like this.”

Peter has been pushing and pushing all night, and finally Balthazar has snapped. But there’s barely time for Peter to process the change in the atmosphere before it changes back.

“I’m gonna go,” Balthazar says. He tugs at the cuff of his sleeve. “Tell everyone I said good night.”

Peter wants to drag Balthazar back or follow him out, or something, but as much of an asshole as he knows he’s being, he’s not enough of an asshole to make Balthazar have this fight in public, in front of all of their friends. So he waits an agonizingly slow twenty minutes, makes his excuses to Meg, and follows Balthazar home from a distance.

 

#

 

Balthazar’s been home half an hour when Peter gets back from Fred’s. A pain starts pulsing in his temple the moment he hears the door creak open. He knows it’s Peter, but he’d been hoping, for the first time ever, that Peter would stay out later. Everyone else is at Fred’s, and with the flat to themselves, Balthazar knows there’s no way out of this fight.

“Balthazar?” Peter calls from the front room. It’s not a yell, just a question, which is reassuring, at least. Balthazar puts down his book and goes into the front room to meet him. He feels sick to his stomach. This is going to be _so_ unpleasant.

Peter is still standing by the door. He’s lit harshly by the flat’s overhead lights, and his face is a little flushed from the walk home in the cold, and he’s practically glowing with intensity. It hurts to look at him.

“You left,” Peter says.

He sounds hurt. Anger flares in Balthazar. _Peter_ is the one who’s been making snide comments all night. _Peter_ is the one who insulted their host. _Peter_ is the one who made Fred’s party unbearable. “You weren’t exactly making it easy to stay.”

Peter’s tearing at his hair, which is always a great sign. “I’ve been an asshole today, I know that, but I _asked_ if we could not go.”

“I get it, you don’t like Vegan Fred, but that’s not an excuse…”

“Oh, _forget_ about Vegan Fred! This has nothing to do with him!”

“Really. _Nothing_.”

“Okay, fine, I haven’t seen you all week, I didn’t want to spend our one night off at Vegan Fred’s mansion, but that’s not the point.”

“Well then, what is the point, Pete?”

“The point is that I haven’t _seen_ you all week, and it’s starting to feel like you don’t even want to spend time with me.”

Balthazar is both too stressed and too confused to respond properly. Of course he wants to spend time with Peter. He _always_ wants to spend time with Peter, except when Peter is going out of his way to make his company unpleasant. And even then, Balthazar still kind of wants to spend time with him. He’s just learned that sometimes, a little space is better. “That’s not… that’s not… Look, that’s not true, obviously that’s not true.”

“It’s not obvious to me.”

“Let’s set up a date, okay?” Balthazar says. “For next week, when we’re done with exams. It’ll be almost our anniversary, we can do a whole day of it.”

Balthazar expects Peter to calm down, reassured, and help him plan their date. As is so often the case, Peter does not do what Balthazar expects.

“Oh, _stop_ it,” Peter says, rolling his eyes.

“Stop what?”

“Every time we’re about to have a fight, you do this. You leave, or you… you try to distract me.”

“I’m not trying to distract you,” Balthazar says, although yes, technically, he was trying to distract him.

“You _are_ , and I’m sick of it! You know, Balth, I know I pick all the fights, but I swear to God, I’m not causing all the problems.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It means that we need to fight sometimes! We can’t always agree, it just doesn’t work like that!”

Balthazar realizes, suddenly, that he and Peter are having a fight about fighting. He closes his eyes, but when he opens them, it turns out that this is _not_ a nightmare, however much it might feel that way.

“I know you, like, enjoy arguing, okay, but it’s not like that for me,” Balthazar says. “I’m not like you, I don’t, like, thrive on this. I just want things to be calm. I don’t think that’s so terrible.”

“I don’t _like_ fighting with you,” Peter says, and as if to prove it, he’s lowered his voice a bit. “This isn’t fun for me. But it’s not the end of the world, Balth. You know that. You have to know that, I’ve _been_ around your family, they’re _always_ raising their voices.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve been around yours, and they never do.”

“And look how well that turned out.”

The air sours. Balthazar’s not sure exactly what Peter’s referring to — John, or his parents, or what — but the fact that there’s a question involved gives him pause. He can’t count how many times he’s heard Rosa screaming at Jojo for touching her stuff, or his parents losing control of their volume while they debate politics, or the twins just yelling for no reason. It’s one of the reasons that, although he loves his family, he also loves being 20 and living on his own. But for all that noise, it occurs to him, his family has never hurt each other the way Peter’s family has.

Peter drops onto the brown couch and runs his fingers through his hair again. “I just think if we’d had this fight two months ago, it wouldn’t have been so bad.”

Balthazar sits down next to him. Three inches between them. He grabs Peter’s hand to close the gap. “But why does it have to be a fight? Why can’t we just be calm about it?”

“Because it’s never going to happen that way! I’m always going to be belligerent, you’re always going to be evasive, that’s just like, who we are, so _sometimes_ , we’re going to have to fight before we can talk things out.  I’m not saying we should turn into Ben and Bea, or we should be having screaming matches all the time. But we have to be able to argue.” He pauses. “And I’ll try to be calmer, too.”

Balthazar winds the tip of his thumb around Peter’s knuckle. The smooth familiarity of it soothes him while he tries to think of a response.

“Why _are_ you so afraid of fighting?” Peter says. “It’s not just me, is it? I mean, I don’t think it is, I’ve never seen you fight with anyone else, but after last year…”

“It’s not just you,” Balthazar says. “I don’t think there’s a reason. I mean, maybe there is, but I don’t _know_ the reason. I just don’t like it. And you say you don’t like fighting with me, but it’s not the same. I get, like, sick. I mean, not _really_ sick, it just feels that way. But it’s kind of like being really sick, too, I guess, because sometimes I feel better afterward.”

“Are you saying… Are you agreeing with me?”

“I don’t know what I’m doing, Pedro.” Balthazar pinches the bridge of his nose. “I don’t want to turn into Bea and Ben, where _everything_ is a fight. I mean, it works for them, I guess, but like… no.”

“Well, how about not being like Bea and Ben, where they go so long putting off talking about things that they almost break up?”

A very mean thought occurs to Balthazar, and he laughs.

“What?”

“Nothing, it’s just…” Balthazar laughs again. “I just had a thought.”

“What is it?”

Well, if he can’t tell his mean thoughts to Pedro, who can he tell them to? “It’s a slogan: ‘Don’t Beadick. Be better.’”

Peter laughs for longer than the joke really warrants, which makes Balthazar feel better. When he calms down, Peter says, “They’re doing really well, though. I mean, they’re still Bea and Ben, but they’re working at the whole communication thing. Which is maybe something we could do better at.”

Balthazar mulls this over for a moment. “You know, Kit and Freddie have a codeword.”

“That’s really their business, don’t you think?” Peter says.

Balthazar shoves him lightly with his shoulder. “Kit says they have a codeword, for when Freddie’s getting to be too… Freddie, and Kit needs her to back down a little. Maybe we could do something like that.”

“So when I need you to have a fight…”

“Or when I really need you to calm down.”

“Yeah.” Peter’s nodding with his whole upper body, getting his shoulders into it, the way he used to do when someone on the soccer team suggested a play he liked. “That could work.”

“Okay, well, what should our codeword be?”

“What’s Kit and Freddie’s?”

“Kit won’t tell me.”

“Never mind,” Peter says, grinning. “I know: ‘Be better.’”

Balthazar laughs. “No, that’s too… No, you know what, okay. ‘Be better.’ That’s it. That’s the codeword.”

“Great,” Peter says. “Be better.”

It takes Balthazar a moment to realize that Peter’s using the codeword _as_ the codeword, not just repeating it.

“Be better,” he agrees. “Okay. What was this fight even about?”

“I’ve barely seen you in a week,” Peter says, with maybe a tenth of the anger he had when he first said it fifteen minutes ago. “Even if you’re not actually canceling dates, or whatever, it feels like you’re _trying_ not to spend time with me.”

“That’s not it,” Balthazar says. “I swear that’s not it. It’s just been a busy week.”

“Yeah, but there was stuff you could’ve done if you’d really wanted. Like not taking Cory’s shift _again_. Or we could’ve had tonight to ourselves, instead of going to Vegan Fred’s.”

“We did kind of end up having tonight to ourselves.”

“Yeah, because I forced the issue by being a jerk.” Peter pulls his hand from Balthazar’s so he can rub his eyes with both palms. “I just… It’s stupid, okay? But I _know_ I can be a bit much for you, and there’s this little part of me that’s still kind of amazed we’re even together, after the shit I pulled last year, and I worry that you’re, I don’t know, that you’ll get sick of me.”

Balthazar shakes his head. He’s not sure why after seven years, he still thinks of Peter as someone with unshakeable confidence, because Peter’s proven time after time that he’s not. But somehow it still always surprises Balthazar to hear Peter voice doubts. And never more so than when they’re doubts about Balthazar’s feelings.

“I’m not sick of you,” Balthazar says, taking Peter’s hand back. “I’m never going to be sick of you.”

“Would you have said that this time last year?”

“This isn’t last year. This isn’t any year but right now. I love you, okay, I love you a lot, and if I do stuff like… like taking Cory’s shifts or studying or even leaving Fred’s party, it’s not because I’m getting sick of you. Sometimes I need a little space to like, catch my breath. Or usually it has nothing to do with you at all, because you know I get worked up over things. But even when I do need space for a moment, it’s not because I’m sick of you, or I don’t want to spend time with you. I’ll try to… I’ll try to do better about letting you know what’s going on with that. But just know that, okay? I love you. I want to be with you. That’s not changing.”

“Okay.” Peter nods. “Okay. I love you too. I’m sorry that I’ve been — well, I’m sorry I was such a jerk today.”

Balthazar swallows. It would be so easy for this be the end of the night’s discussion. But Peter’s confessed his insecurities, and Balthazar’s starting to suspect that if he doesn’t do the same, they’ll only pop up again, three times worse. _Be better_ , he thinks.

“I worry too, you know,” he says. “About you pushing me away. Sometimes I worry that I’ll wake up in the morning, and you’ll have moved back to your old room.”

“It’s not even my room anymore,” Peter says.

“I know. I don’t mean it literally, it’s just, you don’t really treat _our_ room like it’s yours either. Remember when I tried to sleep on the couch?” And then, as Peter opens his mouth to respond, something occurs to Balthazar. “Or is that just more of you being afraid I’ll get sick of you?” He thinks the look on Peter’s face means that he’s right. “Well, I’m not. It’s your room. And anyway, it’s not about the room. It’s not _just_ about the room. I just worry that you picking fights is like, you trying to push me away. And I’m starting to get it, now, that it’s not. But I spent so long not being sure, I still worry.”

Peter squeezes Balthazar’s hand. “I’m not going to apologize for last year, because we said no more of that, but I’m not going anywhere. I promise.”

“I know that,” Balthazar says. “I really do know that. I just worry about things, even when I know, intellectually, that they’re not true. Don’t you?”

“I guess I do,” Peter says. “Is there anything I can do to make you feel better about this? Because I’m not going to totally stop picking fights. I told you, it’s just who we are.”

To Balthazar’s surprise, the answer is simple. “I feel better every day I wake up and you’re next to me.”

Peter gives him a long, loaded look, one that takes Balthazar back a year — has it been a year, already? — to the day they sat in this very seat, and untangled the misunderstandings between them. He wouldn’t have thought it possible, but Balthazar loves Peter even more today than he did then.

“Yeah,” Peter says. “Me too.”

 

**December**

Hero doesn’t think that the opening night of _Love’s Labour’s Lost_ could be any better. She knows her lines. She loves her co-stars. Two days ago, Leo called and told her the doctors couldn’t find any sign of cancer in his body. Everyone has survived the year, and her life is so, so full. So it doesn’t matter that she’s one of the only cast members who isn’t acting against herself in at least one scene, or that her costumes have been pieced together from children’s dress-up clothes, or that no one _really_ knows what their blocking is supposed to be. She can’t imagine a better opening night.

Until, in the middle of her first exchange with Berowne, she looks past Pedro and sees, among the sparse faces in the audience, Beatrice, clinging to Ben’s arm and laughing herself silly.

When the curtain closes (figuratively — their theater space, obtained via some backroom deal that Hero doesn’t really want to know about, is _behind the bar_ at Navarre Bar, so there’s no actual curtain) Hero doesn’t go to her dressing room (the ladies’ restroom) as planned, but dashes around the bar and throws herself into Bea’s arms.

“I thought you weren’t home til Christmas!”

“And miss this?” Bea says, her voice muffled by Hero’s hair. “I thought you knew me better than that.”

“When did you get in? How was your flight? Did you like the show? Was it good?”

“ _You_ were good. The show… was a unique experience.”

Hero lets go of Bea for a moment so she can get a look at her, up close and undimmed by a computer screen. Her hair is short again — she got it cut in Singapore. She looks as happy as Hero feels.

“Hi, Hero,” says Ben, materializing over Bea’s shoulder. Or perhaps he was there all along, and Hero was too wrapped up in Bea too notice.

“Ben!” She gives him a hug as well. “How are you?”

“Magnificent!” Ben says. He looks it, too. Tired — they must have _just_ flown in — but like there’s nowhere else he’d rather be. “I’ve got something for Pedro. Do you know where he is?”

“One last gift from abroad, huh?” Hero says. “I’m sure he’ll be out in a moment, but you should wait until the whole flat’s around. It’s sort of a tradition.”

They wind up having an impromptu cast party at the flat. While Jaquie and Meg raid the kitchen for snacks, Costa, Kel, and Mimi reenact the highlights of the night’s performance, and Paige and Chelsey snuggle on the couch, the flatmates gather around Bea and Ben for the unveiling of the final gift from abroad.

Ben reaches into his travel-worn backpack and pulls out a stiff plastic folder. With great dramatic flair, he opens it to reveal a flyer, printed with a fuzzy copy-of-a-copy quality on lime-green paper. It advertises, in Comic Sans font, the “SAN PEDRO CHRISTMAS BAZAAR.”

“Is that it?” Freddie says, with obvious disappointment. “ _That’s_ the last gift? It’s from the same place as the first one!”

“When we rearranged the flights, we ended up making another stop in LA,” Bea says.

“Anyway, it’s more than it seems,” Ben says. “This flyer is a _magic_ flyer.”

“Oh, is it?” Peter says.

Ben nods. “Watch this.”

He folds the flyer along lines that Hero sees it’s been folded along at least once before. First the corner on the left, which gets rid of “SAN.” Then a long crease down the middle, and two more on either side, which brings the letters “PEDR” to meet the letters “AZAAR.”

“Pedrazaar!” Ben says.

“What is that?” Kit asks.

“It’s a ship! That ship!” Ben points at Pedro and Balthazar, who are standing with their arms around each other, so close they’re nearly stepping on each other’s feet.

“ _Pedrazaar_ ,” Balthazar says. “It’s not a _great_ ship name. Sounds like a prescription medicine for a foot condition.”

“I dunno,” Peter says. “Could be worse. Could be better.”

Hero doesn’t know why Balthazar cracks up at that, but she supposes every couple deserves their inside jokes.

The party goes well into the night. Ben and Costa have a Marlowe-recitation contest, which doesn’t end until Mimi breaks out a monologue from _Dido_ that neither of them remembered existed. Pedro shows off his shoebox full of gifts from abroad, which makes Ben and Hero both choke up a little. Kit and Freddie spend an hour trying and failing to come up with a better ship name for themselves than “Kittie.” Chelsey plays with Bea’s new haircut, putting it up in a thousand clips. Paige and Balthazar sing a duet. Kel dozes in the corner. Jaquie holds Costa’s hand when she thinks no one’s looking. Meg eats every last bite of ice cream in the house.

Hero looks at these people she loves — the ones she’s known all her life, and the ones she never would’ve known if she hadn’t come to Wellington — and she’s so happy she can hardly stand it.

She can’t wait for next year.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I hope you all enjoyed reading this fic as much as I enjoyed writing it. If so, marydebenham and I have a (much fluffier, frankly embarrassingly romantic) fic set in the same universe, which will be up soon.
> 
> The Latin in this fic was translated by the wonderful and helpful scarletwinterraven, after Google tried its hardest and failed. The Spanish in this fic was translated by me, which considering how long it's been since I took Spanish, may be about as accurate as Google . With the exception of the Brazilian key chain, all gifts from abroad are real things that you could really find in those places, although I don't know whether Pedro Santamaria gives autographs, what the music sounds like in CSO Pedro, or what kind of font is used to advertise San Pedro's Christmas Bazaar. And if you ever go to Istanbul, please don't steal any shot glasses.


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